Amazons_A Love Story by Ellen Levy

Author:Ellen Levy [Levy, Ellen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, General, Personal Memoirs
ISBN: 9780826219756
Google: 3FSWpwAACAAJ
Amazon: 0826219756
Goodreads: 13230551
Publisher: University of Missouri
Published: 2012-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

Another word for territory

Probably it was while I was swimming at the beach that I picked up conjunctivitis. By Friday, my eye was swollen shut and I called the cooking school and left a message for the head chef that I would be out sick. I spent the day on the mattress, wearing sunglasses against the glare of light, rinsing my eyes with chilled saline I kept in the fridge. My eyes itched and I lay there waiting to see clearly again. The apartment was small for two people and I felt the edgy annoyance of constant company, though Nel and I tried to approximate solitude and spaciousness by not speaking to each other most of the morning, pretending we were each alone. When the afternoon heat grew intense in the uncurtained room, I went down to the garage and lay on the low cement wall that edged the open-air room, because it was cooler there and because I desperately needed some privacy.

I was lying there on the cement wall, saline at my side and my sunglasses on, when I heard footsteps approaching and sat up.

—Hey, doll, Chequinho said, coming toward me across the garage. Your doorman said I’d find you here.

For a moment I was startled. How did he know where I lived? But I said, instead, Stay back. I’m sick.

—You don’t look sick, he said, smiling, imagining—I suppose—that this was some coquettish game.

—It’s my eyes, I said.

—Your eyes? You have beautiful eyes.

He leaned down to kiss me, but I pulled back. I shifted away from him and removed my sunglasses. When he saw my red and rheumy eyes, he drew back.

—What is it? he asked.

—Conjunctivitis, I said. It’s highly contagious.

He took a step back. I’ll come by another time, he said, when you feel better. How long will it last? he asked.

—How should I know? I said.

—You look beautiful, he said, recovering himself a bit, and I understood then, though only dimly, that he hated me, this little man. Only someone who hated a woman would lie like this. Only a man who hated women would attend to them this way. With such obvious insincerity.

—No, I said, coldly, I don’t.

—I’ll come back, he said. His tone was not friendly. I’ll come by another time.

—Do what you want, I said, hoping I didn’t sound afraid.

But he did come back, a week or so later, when you and Nel were in the apartment one afternoon. When he comes in the open door, you introduce him to Nel and she recognizes his name from your story of the beach, and trying to be helpful, she chats with you for a moment, then contrives to go across the hall to have some of Zé’s famous rice.

After Nel leaves, you two sit on the mattress that serves as a couch and talk. You try to make this ordinary, a visit by a friend, an expected thing. When he leans over to kiss you, you stand up, and offer him a cafezinho—the sugary local coffee brewed strong as tar—and a shower, because this is the Bahian way, the normal thing to do.

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