Missing Rose (9781101603864) (5 page)

10

W
HEN
S
ENHORA
A
LVES
was out of earshot, Diana sat down at the foot of the grave. She put her hands on her chest and prayed silently for a while. Even though she didn't believe her mother could hear her, she still spoke to her.

“Mom, did you hear what Senhora Alves said? She said I resembled you more than any other girl resembles her mother. She's such a sweet person. But I suppose there are some things she just doesn't know . . .

“I wanted to tell you that last night I glanced through Mary's letters, but then I put them away again. Even though it may be too late, I did think of doing what I'd promised you. But I couldn't, Mom. Don't ask me why, I just couldn't.

“I wonder about one thing, though. I wonder what you
thought when you read Mary's letters. We both thought the same thing, didn't we? That Mary's mentally unstable? I know you told me she was unique, but you said it so that I wouldn't hold back from looking for her, didn't you?

“I'd really like to know what you actually meant by the word ‘unique.' As far as I can tell, this word means ‘one and only.' It means there's nothing like it in the whole world. But you didn't use it in that sense, right, Mom? You didn't feel that Mary is more worthy to be your daughter than I am, did you?

“That couldn't be true anyway—Mary's insane. Didn't you read her third letter? How she heard the rose breathing, the breeze blowing through her room, the light illuminating everywhere . . . And what about the conversation she had with the rose! If those aren't symptoms of psychosis, what are they? They are nothing but hallucinations. Trust me, Mom, I've studied enough psychology to know that.

“In any case, the things she says in her first letter, the things she claims she realized as a child, are in themselves enough for us to decide she isn't normal. Can a child of that age have such a perception of life?

“And what about the dream she describes in her second letter? Supposedly, in her dream you tell her to go to some garden, meet with some person and talk with some rose. And many years later, off she goes and does just what you told her to. Finds the person you spoke of and, what's more, learns from her how to talk with roses! Could all this be for real?

“Anyway, don't worry about Mary, Mom. Maybe life is easier if you're not quite right in the head. Don't worry about me, either. Perhaps I'm suffering because I'm still sane, perhaps I can't be convinced that I haven't lost you and perhaps I can't help thinking that you no longer exist . . . But in spite of all this, I will not go crazy, Mom. I will not try to escape from reality and I will not create a fantasy world for myself. Because I am a big girl and I always will be!”

Diana got to her feet. “And one day,” she added, “I am going to conquer all this pain and succeed in being your daughter.”

11

A
FTER RETURNING FROM
the cemetery, Diana spent most of the day sleeping. Although she had many things to do—bank payments to make, graduation preparations, e-mails to answer, etc.—she kept putting it all off for another day.

She just didn't feel like doing anything, but to sit and do nothing only increased the emptiness inside her. Eventually, she decided to go for a walk along the shore.

T
HE PARK WAS
more crowded than it had been the previous day, but she found a secluded corner where she could sit and watch the children throwing bread to the seagulls. After a short stroll, she sat down again, this time to watch the sun sink slowly into the ocean.

On her way home, she again took the shortcut; she wanted to go past the beggar in the hope that he might give her a clue as to what he'd meant by his words the previous day.

As she approached the spot where the beggar was sitting, she saw he was examining his surroundings in the same way. Pausing in front of him, she stared him directly in the eye. To her surprise, he took no notice of her. Instead, he went on turning his head this way and that, watching the other passersby as if the girl who now stood in front of him wasn't the same girl he'd spoken to a day earlier.

“Hi, won't you tell my fortune today?”

The beggar appeared to have no idea what she was talking about. “Do I know you?”

“Don't you remember? It's me.”

“I know it's you. But who are you?”

Diana, now quite certain he was just fooling with her, turned on her heel and marched away.

A few paces further on, she noticed the artist busy painting. He was wearing the same old shirt and blue jeans. She couldn't see much that was different in the painting he was working on, apart from a greater mass of foam from the breaking wave.

“You look better today,” the artist said.

Well, what a polite way to start a conversation, thought Diana. But she still couldn't help wondering how bad she must have looked the day before.

“Won't you look at the paintings?”

“As far as I can see, not much has changed in the painting you're working on.”

“Doesn't the increase in the wave's rage count as a change?”

“Of course, it counts,” Diana said. “Yesterday, the painting was totally different! It's as if I'm looking at another painting now! Wow, it's completely amazing! With only a few more brushstrokes, you've managed to create a storm that reveals what's inside the wave. Wow, I couldn't be more impressed!”

“The same as yours?”

“Excuse me?”

“The storm in you reveals what's inside pretty well, too.”

Struck by his comment, Diana's shoulders slumped.

“I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be rude.”

“That's okay. What do you really see in the picture?”

“Well . . . I see you haven't yet added the flying seagull which appears in your other paintings.”

“You're quite observant, I must say.”

“Some people think so,” Diana said.

In spite of his scruffy appearance and crude style of greeting, the artist seemed to be a person of some education.

“Are you a student?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“So you've finished your studies?”

“I was studying economics till I quit.”

Diana looked at him as if to say, “But why?”

“Before it was too late, I realized I'd never improve my painting by listening to my economics professors.”

“Couldn't you work on your painting as well as continue with your studies?”

“It wasn't that I didn't have the time. The problem was that each new painting I finished made me feel that the previous one was better.”

“Better in what sense?”

“Well, like every other artist, what I paint onto the canvas is what's inside me. But with every passing day, I could see that my colors were fading. You could perhaps say that I had to leave school for the sake of my original colors.”

Diana's eyes showed her approval. “That's quite brave, I must say.” She held out her hand to him. “I'm Diana.”

The artist shook her hand but said nothing.

He had done it again! He'd behaved as if he was indifferent to her. He had neither told her his name nor had the courtesy to say he was glad to meet her. It was pointless to continue an already overextended conversation with someone who couldn't even be bothered to give his name. So, saying that she had an appointment to keep, Diana muttered good-bye and left.

On her way home, however, her mind was preoccupied with what he had said about the colors fading. Just as the artist had once missed his original colors, Diana thought how much she missed her mother's colors.

12

W
HEN
D
IANA HAD
disappeared from view, the beggar waved to the artist. The day before, the artist had gone to him and asked questions about the beautiful girl whose fortune the beggar had told.

The beggar had grinned, saying, “Hold it, son. What happens between me and my customers isn't here to stay; it flies away. You go ask the little lady herself what you figure on knowing. She comes here soon. Tomorrow, she comes . . . But just look at you, asking an old fool like me for help. You are young, ar-tis-tic and you are nearly as good-looking as me. What do you need me to charm the little lady for?”

The artist, a little embarrassed, had tried to defend himself. “I saw both of you looking at me, so naturally I wondered why.”

“Don't make me laugh, son. Those eyes, big as saucers, see her come down the road there; those big eyes fixing themselves on her, weren't mine, eh? No need for fortune-telling. You wished to meet that little lady the minute you saw her. Do I tell a lie? If that's a lie, let your gull shit on my poor old head!”

Not knowing what to say, the artist had made some excuse and left. He'd realized it wouldn't be easy to prize information out of the old beggar.

Just a few minutes ago, however, when the beggar waved to him with a welcoming smile, the thought passed through his mind that perhaps the beggar had now decided to say something about Diana. The artist would try his luck again by visiting the beggar tonight.

13

I
N THE CENTER
of the straw mat, the artist carefully placed the bottle of fruit juice he'd taken from the cooler in his jeep. The beggar had warned him the previous evening not to come empty-handed again. He had also told him to wait until the park was less crowded in order not to chase away potential customers.

“Will you receive a guest now that it's—”

“My place is always open to anybody who doesn't want to know too much.”

“Okay, okay, I won't ask so many questions tonight. But I'd like to know how you knew she'd be taking a walk again today. Did you use your fortune-telling? I don't have $9 by the way, let me say that from the start.”

“I don't believe in no fortune-telling,” the beggar said. “People want to hear their future, so I tell them. What am I supposed to do? Tell them, ‘Don't ask me, if you live, you find out?'”

“So you mean you actually can't tell fortunes?”

“Begging your pardon, young man, I'm a man of honor. I respect my job. Fortune, that's just the name of the game. Ashes, jars, water, they're just the excuse. You must have some kind of a show for folks, something like they see in the movies. Suppose everything you say comes true, they won't believe it, not without the hokeypokey. Like I said, fortune-telling is just the name. What I do is read faces. I read faces, all right—everything's written there.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let's suppose I watch the little lady when you were talking to her. You know what I see? I see on her face she likes your pictures. Ho-cus po-cus, I know sometime soon she comes back. There, that's fortune-telling for you.”

“You're not telling me her walk was an excuse to see me, are you?”

The beggar shrugged his shoulders. “What do I know about the little lady's thoughts? I'm not a shrink. Reasons I don't know, I just know results. But leave that now and tell me about yourself. Okay, the little lady is pretty and all, but tell me who
you
are or aren't. Where you're coming from, where you're going. Some kind of wanderer shows on your face.”

“Yeah, something like that. I've come from Paranaguá and I'm working my way back there, painting along the beach. The painting you see right there, that's the first one of my summer project. In fact, according to my plan, I should have finished it yesterday and be thirty miles away at my second pitch by now, but . . . Anyway, you know the rest.”

“The picture doesn't want to be finished after you saw the little lady, eh? Oh my, the chase is always the sweetest. It's when you catch or get caught things kind of go sour, hey? It's good, son, all good. Let the painting hang around a bit longer.”

The beggar emptied his takings for the day out of the coin mug onto the mat. Filling the mug with fruit juice, he set it in front of the artist. He himself took a swig from the bottle.

“That Paranaguá of yours, what's it like for begging?”

“I have no idea. And I can't say it is really ‘my' Paranaguá. I'm from São Paulo, originally. I was at college in the U.S. for a while—Boston, to be precise—until I quit. Then I moved to Paranaguá to live with a friend of mine.”

“What do your folks say about you quitting college? I hear college guys make big bucks, eh?”

“My family never had any financial expectations from me. They're doing quite okay. But they did expect more of me than that. They thought I might make a good banker or something along those lines. And because it was Harvard I quit, they did make quite a fuss about it. But there was no other way; I just had to paint.”

“Har-vard, huh? My, my! Heard about that place. You told that to the little lady, I bet.”

“No.”

The beggar stared strangely at the artist.

“Son, there are three choices . . . One: you are a fool. Two: you don't want to charm the little lady. Three: you are a fool. Take your pick.”

The artist smiled.

“What do you want, son?” the beggar asked. “You want her to take you for a loser? A shepherd herding a flock of pictures that don't sell? You tell her who you are. How's she to know who you are if you don't show?”

“I don't know. I'm not sure whether I want her to look at me differently just because I went to Harvard. I don't want to be punished in the end with being loved for somebody other than who I am.”

“What! Who's loving what and punishing who?”

“If she's going to like me because I went to Harvard, it's better she not like me at all. Because I'm not my education. Or my job, or my brains . . . And I'm not the sum of all of these, either.”

“So you know who you are, son?”

“Well, I'm just . . . I'm just who I am.”

“Son, you listen to me. Don't you see how smart she is with her cool shades pushed way up on her head? That word, ‘Harvard,' it'd be music to her ears. Just tell her ‘Har-vard' and maybe you'll get lucky.”

The artist shook his head. “No, too risky . . . There will always be someone better than me. But there isn't anyone who's the same as me. You know, everyone's fingerprints are different. I like to think we have a kind of inner fingerprint, too. The fingerprint which we cover by wearing trendy gloves.”

“Oh my! Poor kid's talking about gloves now.”

“Sorry,” the artist said, smiling.

“So, what do you expect from the little lady?”

“I don't know. Do you think she'll be here tomorrow?”

“Sorry, son. Fortune-telling, that's worth $9. Can't tell it for free to those who don't know what they want.”

“I guess you're right.”

After a short silence: “Well,” the artist said, “I think I should be on my way.”

“As you like, son. Bring us guarana next time you come. Jumbo-size, mind you.”

A
FTER PUTTING HIS
paintings into the jeep, the artist stretched out on a lounger under the stars. The light of the full moon was reflected on the water, its path growing wider as it extended away toward the horizon. He fixed his eyes on the view, wondering how he could have been so taken by a girl whose face lacked the light he was looking for.