Free The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa Page B

taking photographs – it’s what she knows how to do. There was nothing interesting in her life, save for the two or three interesting people she’d met along the way. Félix insisted. So was she an only child, or had she grown up surrounded by brothers and sisters? And her parents, what did they do? Ângela made a gesture of annoyance. She stood up. Then she sat down again. She’d been an only child for four years. Then came two sisters and a brother. Their father was an architect, their mother an airline stewardess. Her father wasn’t an alcoholic, he didn’t even drink, and no, she hadn’t ever been sexually abused by him. Her parents loved each other; every Sunday he would give her flowers; every Sunday in exchange she would give him a poem. Even in the difficult years – she’d been born in seventy-seven, a child of that difficult time – they’d never lacked for anything. She’d had a simple, happy childhood. Whichwas to say, her life would never make much of a novel – still less a modern novel. You couldn’t write a novel these days, even a short story, without the female lead being raped by an alcoholic father. Her only talent as a child, she went on, had been to draw rainbows. She spent her whole childhood drawing rainbows. One day, when she turned twelve, her father gave her a camera, a basic plastic thing, and she stopped drawing them. She began to take photographs of rainbows. She sighed…
    ‘… to this day.’
    Félix had met Ângela Lúcia at the launch of an exhibition of paintings. I think – but this is just supposition on my part – that he fell in love with her the moment they exchanged their first words, as his whole life had prepared him to give himself to the first woman who upon seeing him didn’t recoil in horror. When I say ‘recoil’, you must understand that I don’t mean this literally. When introduced to Félix Ventura there are, of course, women who do literally recoil, who take a step back while offering their hand; the majority of women, however, recoil in spirit – which is to say, they offer him their hand (or cheek), saying ‘A pleasure’, then avert their eyes and make some flimsy comment about the state of the weather. Ângela Lúcia had offered him her cheek, he’d kissed her, she’d kissed him back, then she’d said:
    ‘You know, that’s the first time I’ve kissed an albino.’
    When Félix explained to her what he did for a living – ‘I’m a genealogist’ – which is what he always says when he meets strangers – she became interested at once.
    ‘Seriously? You’re the first genealogist I’ve met.’
    They had left the exhibition together, and went to continue their conversation on the terrace of a bar, under the stars, looking out over the black waters of the bay. That night, Félix told me, only he had spoken. Ângela Lúcia possesses a rare gift, an ability to remain engaged in a conversation without hardly speaking at all. Then my friend had returned home, and said to me:
    ‘I’ve met a remarkable woman. Oh, my friend, I don’t have the words to describe her – everything about her is Light.’
    I thought he was exaggerating. Where there is light, there are shadows too.

Dream No. 5

     

     
    José Buchmann was smiling. A faint, mocking smile. We were in the luxury car of an old steam train. There was a canvas hanging on one of the walls, which lit the air with a faint copper-coloured glow. I noticed a chessboard, dark wood and marble, on a little table between us. I didn’t remember having moved any of the pieces, but the game was clearly progressing. The photographer was doing rather better.
    ‘At last,’ he said, ‘I’ve been dreaming of this for several days. I wanted to see you. I wanted to know what you were like.’
    ‘So do you think this conversation is real?’
    ‘The conversation, certainly; it’s just the setting that is rather lacking in substance. There is truth – even if there isn’t realism – in everything