Free The Girl in the Photograph by Lygia Fagundes Telles Page A

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 retard! Tu es en retard! ’”
    “Did you go to bed with her?”
    “She was our governess, Bunny.”
    “So what?”
    “She was horrible looking, all bones and freckles with her hair always standing on
     end, look, like this,” he said holding his fingers up perpendicular to his head. “The
     way she walked was exactly like the watch, tick, tock, tick, tock. Her hair was like
     this, look!”
    Ana Clara was staring fixedly at the ceiling, stroking her abdomen.
    “Yeah, I see. Lorena’s governess was English. Nha-nha-nha-nha. She said she learned
     to write better in English because of the governess living on the ranch. She looks
     like an insect. Besides, it’s all gone, isn’t it? There you are. Isn’t it all gone?
     There’s no more ranch nor governess nor anything. Finished. What’s left of the money
     Mama’s boyfriend takes charge of. Good for him.”
    “Loads of money. I discovered something, it’s easy to have either loads of money or
     nothing, hanh? Isn’t that fabulous? Yiiipeeeee! ”
    “When she puts on those glasses she looks like an insect wearing glasses. And she
     doesn’t even need them, it’s sickening. Nha-nha-nha. You remember her? That real skinny
     girl. Both of them envy me because I’m beautiful, elegant. Magazine covers. So. The
     nha-nha buys thousands of dresses, her mother sends her bagsful of clothes. For what?
     She doesn’t wear any of them, she only wears those slacks and nha-nha blouses. That’show she talks, squeaky, nha-nha-nha. Her brother’s a diplomat. He sends her thousands
     of things too. Does it do any good? Shit, if I only had half that wardrobe. Super-chic.”
    “The communist?”
    “You’re getting it all mixed up, the communist is the fat one from the Northeast.
     This is the skinny one, the intellectual type. Insect-ish.”
    “Are you sad, Bunny? Cheer up, love, cheer up. I really wish people would be happier,
     it’s so good to be happy. In the street you see everybody so sad, why are people so
     sad? Hanh? I’d really like to go out and make people happy. ‘Look here, hold my hand
     and come with me and I’ll show you the garden of happiness with God and all, come
     on …’”
    “I think I’m pregnant, you hear? Pregnant.”
    “Hanh?”
    She put her mouth close to his ear. “Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant.”
    He raised his innocent eyebrows. Half of the whiskey in his glass ran down his chest.
     He put the glass on the floor and bent over her, reaching for her hands under the
     sheet. They were clenched tightly. He opened them slowly and kissed the palm of one
     hand, then the