Free What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel by António Lobo Antunes Page A

the sun and a horse that looked like a mouse appeared
    a hamster
    where Mr. Couceiro was galloping in armor and with a sword through the rice paddies of Timor, I scratched out those idiotic scribblings and tossed them onto the easy chair
    —I don’t want this crap take it
    I locked myself in the laundry room and traveled on the rusty bicycle until it was night; I went around the world, and I got to Paris with the Noémia Couceiro Marques in the picture rubbing up against me with her bangs, outings on Sundays, the circus at Easter time, the Phantom Train, I wasn’t afraid of falling asleep in the dark, holding her by the hand, you’ll get to be four feet on the door frame, I’m four feet two, I’m huge, what if I asked
    —Will you be my girl?
    what would your answer be, her bedroom that we never went into unless it was Dona Helena changing the flowers in the vase, the quilt that was pale with dust, the metal owl with glass eyes on the triangular corner table, out the window the buildings on Avenida Almirante Reis that never smiled would chat from time to time with the disconnected tolling of the church, the fat, wise, mistaken, salivating clock hands full of sparrows from the square, the tolling would stop and not a single sparrow left, only the jaws of the roofs chewing their cud of treetops, Mr. Couceiro looking at the picture
    —Don’t you think her color is better this afternoon?
    the birds waiting somewhere or other for the whim of what time it was
    —Do you know anything about the sparrows Noémia what have they done to the sparrows?
    shadows and more shadows shrouding things, shrouding you, painting everything blue and pink and green
    the gouaches that were left
    I could steal rings from my father and give them to you, not to buy drugs with, to give to you, how did they dress you on the day you died, what did they put on you, who dressed you, tell me about the coffin, the wreaths, about the place where you are today, Dona Helena chopping cabbage in the other end of the apartment
    —What?
    Mr. Couceiro pulling up his sleeve with his fingertips to wipe a speck of dust from the frame
    —I asked you if you didn’t think her color is better this afternoon?
    the blue and pink and green tubes of paint in a small wooden box filled with tarnished coins and a dried beetle, in another drawer colored pictures of actresses, a bracelet made from wire twisted into artistic shapes, the school notebook, Dictation: The Beatitudes, blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God, didn’t get indignant if Rui said
    —Are you going with a dead girl Paulo?
    blessed are the humble for they shall be exalted, the charm bracelet with hearts, little hoops, we die and the things that belonged to us take on a solemn mystery, the bracelet confessing to me
    —All my life
    and repenting it, delving into the notebook, Copy: My Country, my country is located at the westernmost point of europe bathed by the atlantic ocean it is thirty-five thousand square miles in area and is called, not bothered by the doctor’s bewilderment
    —You’ve got a girl named Noémia and you never go out with her?
    Dona Helena drying her hands on a dishcloth, with pieces of cabbage in her hair, on her arms, going up to the picture, two sleeves delicately wiping off the speck, straightening the frame in its crocheted oval, the picture wobbling
    —Don’t drop it
    a fingerprint on the glass and cleaning it again, Dona Helena looking over her glasses
    —Her color does look better to me, yes
    the roses in the vase withered and rusty, the water muddy, one of her stockings the right one, the second stocking gone, time was dissolving her nose, her eyebrows, her left hand down along the length of her skirt, in a short time there won’t even be a trace, the right stocking gone too and then
    how many weeks, how many months?
    no stockings, a blur where a solitary sandal resists the centuries, it