The Hour of the Star () by Clarice Lispector

Author:Clarice Lispector
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Directions
Published: 2012-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

Olímpico de Jesus worked in a metals factory and she didn’t even notice that he didn’t call himself a “worker” but a “metallurgist." Macabéa was pleased with his social position because she was also proud of being a typist, even though she earned less than minimum wage. But she and Olímpico were somebody in the world. “Metallurgist and typist” were a classy pair. Olímpico’s work had the taste you get when you smoke a cigarette you’ve lit on the wrong end, on the filter. His job was taking metal rods coming off the top of the machine and putting them below, on a conveyor belt. He’d never wondered why you put the bars down there. His life wasn’t so bad and he even managed to save some money: he slept for free in a gatehouse at a demolition site because his friend was the watchman.

Macabéa said:

— Good manners are the best inheritance.

— Well I think the best inheritance is lots of money. But one day I’ll be very rich — said he who had a demonic grandeur: his strength was bursting.

One thing he wanted to be was a bullfighter. Once he’d gone to the movies and shivered from head to toe when he saw the red cape. He didn’t feel sorry for the bull. What he liked was seeing blood.

In the northeast he’d saved week after week to have a perfect tooth pulled and traded for a tooth of shimmering gold. This tooth gave him a position in life. Moreover, killing had made him a man with a capital M. Olímpico had no shame, he was what they call in the northeast an old goat. But he didn’t know that he was an artist: in his off-hours he sculpted figures of saints and they were so lovely that he didn’t sell them. He put in all the details and, with all due respect, sculpted everything on the Christ Child. He thought that the way things are is the way things are, and Christ had been besides a saint a man like him, though without the gold tooth.

Public affairs interested Olímpico. He loved listening to speeches. That he had his opinions, there was no doubt about that. He’d squat with a cheap cigarette in his hand and think. The way he’d squat on the ground back in Paraíba, sitting on zero, meditating. He said out loud and by himself:

— I’m very intelligent, I’ll end up a congressman.

And who can deny that he was good at speeches? He had the singsong tone and the oily phrases, just right for someone who opens his mouth and speaks demanding and determining the rights of men. In the future, which I don’t get into in this story, did he or didn’t he end up in Congress? And forcing other people to call him doctor.

Macabéa was actually a medieval figure whereas Olímpico de Jesus thought of himself as a key player, the kind that opens any door. Macabéa simply wasn’t technical, she was just her. No,

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