The next day, Luiza gathered her children for an impromptu lunch. I'm moving to the beach. I've already found the apartment. Mom, we can’t let you stay so far away, especially now. It’s already decided. I’m signing the contract tomorrow. She had no time for waiting and worrying. Not for long conversations or dragged-out decisions. Inês Ataíde Gomes, Sociedade Portuguesa de Psicanálise On April 1st, a short elderly woman moved into the apartment next door. She came with her suitcases, busy, and behind her a tabby cat, winding itself around her feet. Together they moved in a synchronized dance, where the steps of one never disturbed the steps of the other. Aside from this curious detail, she was no different from the other gray residents of the gray building. Ah! But that synchrony was almost perfect. A complicity that suggested great affection but also great loneliness. Maria. Yes, that was her name – Maria, like so many other Marias. Maria carried with her a weel of lost stories. Traces of sadness and bitter losses, griefs — many, some gentle, some violent. Being Maria was being a woman, and being a Portuguese woman, or perhaps a Brazilian woman... The cat meowed, making its presence known. “Calm down, Nautilus,” Maria said, while searching her belongings for the animal's bowls. Nautilus was the way she found to transform horror into love. Ten years ago, the cod fishing boat Nautilus had sunk in the seas of Norway, with it went José, the love of her life, father of the children she never had, companion on journeys she never took, partner in the memories she never built. A swallow perched on the windowsill. Maria and Nautilus both watched the small bird, which, indifferent to them, preened its black feathers under the spring sun of that first day of April. They are enchanted, each in their own way, suspended in that moment when history is not present, and a black bird rested upon their window.
14
Made with FlippingBook Annual report maker