The days on Quiet Farm were breathing as long and empty as the mansion. The family didn’t receive guests all together. Mother would rarely cheer up for the arrival of two neighbor ladies, she’d whisk them to her own bedroom as if trying to protect them from the long hallways. And Esmeralda would brighten with excitement and a certain brutality when her girlfriends, pale and tall under corn-colored hats, came to see her. She’d quickly put on shoes and, flushed, lead them to her room locking the door, time passing. And sometimes some member of the paternal family came from the south to visit Grandmother and Father. Uncle would sit at the table, smile at everyone with his deafness and eat. And also Aunt Margarida, skinny, her skin flaccid, her sharp dry bird face but her lips always pink and moist like a liver; she’d wear on a single finger the two rings of widowhood and three more with stones. Father would be reborn on those days and Virgínia would watch him frightened, with a worried disgust. He himself wanted to serve the table, he excused the black servant from the kitchen — Virgínia would look at him restless and mute, her mouth full of a water of nausea and attention. With wet eyes he’d bring Grandmother up to the table, saying:
“The lady of the house must dine with her children, the lady of the house must dine with her children . . .” — and you hardly noticed that this was a joke. Virgínia would laugh. Aunt Margarida’s gaze was hasty and in the fraction of a second it lasted she seemed to smile. When it was over, however, and her face was already turned the other way, something would float in the air like the aftermath of a revealed fear. With her head like a little bird’s with combed feathers, slanted to the plate, she’d eat almost without speaking. You could tell she’d die someday, you could tell. Uncle was saying with a profound and calm mien:
“But this is so tasty.”
“Have some more!” her father was shouting blinking with joy.
Uncle was looking her father right in the eye with an unmoving smile. He was kneading a ball of bread and answering with tact and bonhomie as if needing to mollify his own deafness:
“Well then, well then.”
Father was looking for a moment with surpassing astonishment. He was suddenly grabbing his brother’s plate, filling it with food and pushing it back, emotive and happy:
“Go on, eat it all at once.”
Uncle was slightly gesturing by jerking his hand in front of his own head in a military salute. Father was watching him with his arms outstretched like a doll’s, overstating his happiness.
“Ah what a sad life, what a sad life,” he was saying laughing a lot.
When after a few days the guests would depart, life in the mansion was once again sucked up by the country air and the flies would buzz louder, shining in the light. Father would resume his solitude without sadness, push away his tablecloth and silverware, bring over a lamp, read the paper and never open his book. He’d later go up to sleep, climbing the stairs slowly as if in order to hear the whinny of the steps, a dark and calm hope, almost a lack of desire. On occasion, in his rolled long johns — he’d suddenly transform into a funny man and Virgínia had trouble falling asleep on those nights — in his rolled long johns he’d go about living and stay until two, three in the morning watching the birds lay their small, small eggs. With his body covered in chicken lice he’d then get into a tub full of water and kerosene placed in the courtyard and, lit weakly by the lamp, wash himself, rinse himself silently, the darkness was sprinkled by wet and abrupt noises, he’d go to sleep. Mother would ask amidst the forgetfulness of the dinner, in the heart of the mansion:
“How’s the stationer’s?”
“Fine,” responded her father.
Virgínia would walk past her grandmother’s door, stop happily for a second to listen to her snoring. She
