A Practical Guide to Levitation by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

Author:Jose Eduardo Agualusa [Agualusa, Jose Eduardo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2023-08-08T00:00:00+00:00

SCENE THREE — DOMESTIC LIFE

The woman undid her dressing gown. A constellation of small coppery moles tumbled down her neck, over her shoulders, over her breasts, like confetti scattered over her on a carnival night. When he had first had her in his arms, so many years ago, her skin was smooth, clean and so glowing that she seemed able to light up even the most forlorn of nights. That was a long time ago now, that was yesterday. Carlos felt he was falling, as if the ground had been taken from him, and shut his eyes. Maria Eduarda was concerned:

“What’s wrong?”

The man smiled. He held his arms out to her, and she came to nestle in them. It was nothing, he reassured her. It pained him, sometimes, the passing of time. He had fallen asleep on his grandfather’s lap and when he woke up the old man was dead, and he had lost the family home, his strength and the dreams of his youth. Time steals everything from us. The woman stroked his thinning hair. She stroked his face. She kissed his lips, a light touch at first, then furiously, urgently. Her fingers moved down his shoulders, down his chest, through the gray hair.

“You don’t regret it?”

Carlos didn’t regret it.

“Love is never wrong.”

He had been saying that for years. Of course love can be wrong, indeed it happens with some frequency. Carlos knew this. He would say those words, not to convince himself, nor even in an attempt to convince Maria, but merely to hide with this false reply the lack of any better one. He didn’t regret having gone to meet her, in Paris, after the death of his grandfather, old Afonso da Maia. He had bought a small mansion, in the Place des Vosges, and had settled there, with her and with little Rosa.

On a brief visit to Lisbon, years later, he had told his friends, João da Ega among them, that Maria was set to marry some “gentilhomme campagnard, from a serious family, with a fortune.” Nobody found the weak lie surprising. Nobody demolished him with questions. Men’s memory is fleeting and elusive, and besides, life in the meantime had spun tastier scandals than this. Carlos and Maria traveled around various countries. On one occasion, in Bayreuth, as they were leaving the opera, they saw – terrified! – a fellow raising his walking stick and coming toward them, breaking through all the appalled Germanic composure with a barbaric southern shout:

“Carlos!”

It was Cruges, old Cruges, with the curly hair, gray now, cascading down over his sharp shoulder bones.

“Carlos! How lovely to see you! Nothing like seeing Parsifal in the very place where it was born, eh?!”

He was so enraptured that he went on talking for another five minutes about Wagner, about the unique conditions of the Festspielhaus, about redemption through love. Only then, as he was catching his breath, did he seem to notice Maria. Carlos spoke:

“You two already know each other, I think?…”

Cruges said yes right away, kissing Maria’s hand.

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