I decided to give it a second shot, for you, who can only read me in English...though I must warn you that in English I am not myself, boundaries, self-checks, inability to write fluently while playing with the sound of language...that is one of my greatest pleasures in my mother tongue. In English the knowledge of the word circumscribes my universe, and the universe becomes small, contained, and more likely than not, untrue. Nevertheless, I write to tell you about someone other than me. I'm simply a continuation of her, without her I would not be.
You know I was born in 1903, ...the first radio, the first tv, the first car...the men in the moon...that was my nephew who sat with me, smart, the little roasted ass...beautiful green eyes though... his hair, ohhhh my, it looked like a toilet brush...how did your mother fall for that quarter of an oz??? Uhhh, but smart, intelligent, you got your brains from him, that's for sure. He sat like you do now, and tell me everything that was going on, that was a day, I'll never forget that day.
-Grandma?
-Yes sweetie...
-How is father your nephew?
-Well...not really my nephew, but that's how they used to call me, aunt...he and his brother, how beautiful his brother, Tó looked like a little girl...
She laughed out loud sitting in the golden couch, the cigarette half-lit...
-Crap, more ash on the carpet, let me step on it dear, move, move...
The red carpet had a good couple of ash marks on it, burned to the bottom, the little girl used to let her fingers roll from one to another, just feeling its bareness. The dog started growling like it always did anytime one of the kids got closer to great-grandma.
-Showing your teeth you old hag? smiling? you're smiling? She laughed while tightening the doggy's jaws. When she let go he still didn't budge, with his belly up, his front paws traced around her arm while she patted him.
-Those looser fucks left me the dog and never came for it...uhh, wouldn't give the little stinker away now...we need to cut your hair stinker... go get the scissors dear, they are probably on the sewing machine...
As soon as the dog heard the mention of cutting his hair he fled from her arms running to the kitchen. They both laughed.
-Grandma don't cut his hair, he looks so ugly after...
-What, take him to the "salon"?!!!! I don't have money to have someone cut his hair, just get me the scissors girl.
The dog was a poodle, or reminded you of a poodle, grey, with "rastas", really!! I don't think he smoked weed but it would surely have suited him, no one brushed him and the hair would just end up making him look like Bob Marley on a good day. Grandma would get the scissors and cut the "rastas" randomly, while the little girl hoped she wouldn't cut the dog. She couldn't see so well anymore and sometimes would cut the dog a little, just a little... after the "hair treatment" the dog looked like a half way, or should I say third way shaved sheep!!! He'd hide under the blue couch, the amazingly beautiful blue velvet couch. As you look around in the living-room there are incredibly beautiful things. The navy blue velvet couch, soft like heaven must be...the golden high chair with ears, where great-grandma used to sit...literally ears that would extend to the front a little and where her head used to rest. The red carpet. The colors fill the room with warmth, and when the sun hits through the large six pane window on the back of the golden chair no one can actually watch tv because of the glare. No one wants to watch tv, the little girl sings Brazilian music continually, great-grandma holds her hands and dance, they dance the tango, well she tries to teach her baby girl who laughs and lets herself roll in her great-grandma arms, the tango, the flamenco. The flamenco was her favorite, she'd get the castanets and let her wise, a little crooked by arthritis fingers make the magic sound while her body swayed and swirled enveloped in the long black robe she wore around the house. The help, an old lady, maybe twenty years younger than her didn't help anymore except for the morning tea, she'd clap. Most of the time she'd be dozing on the sewing machine. Many decades ago she had been hired as the seamstress. Back then there where the nannies, the cleaning maids, the gardeners, and her. Lucinda was her name. Lucinda was a single mother who had left her honor and her only daughter behind, with some relative, so she could send her all the money she ever made. Lucinda worked for the well-being of her daughter, for the love of the numerous little kids who filled the house in the last 30 years, and especially to pamper the little boy, brother of the little girl, the youngest of three. Lucinda would drag her heavy body, her varicose legs onto the kitchen and clap. The dog would peek from underneath the kitchen stool and for some moments forget about his terrible hair and just enjoy the music...two old ladies, a child and an ugly dog as happy as they could be. The kitchen was wide and long, with butter colored armoires and marble sinks. The floor was marble too and it stretched almost all the way to the windows. Three big windows almost always open, the sun jarring through. When she was smaller, a toddler, that's where they'd sit her, distracting her with the passing cars and buses hoping she'd eat. "Here comes the airplane!!!"and stuck a spoon full down her throat. Now she would seat on the marble counters, step up to the stool and then to the cold counter, in-between the old radio and the toaster. Funny I can't describe the toaster, only the smell of the toast. The radio was pretty, shiny, dirty white and dark brown. The radio never played Brazilian songs...where did the little girl learned them no one knows... or better saying, they all forgot. After great-grandma passed, and after that her grandma, there was only the godmother to remember her childhood, but she had only lived in the house for a couple of years and actually never wondered about her singing. She sang like a yellow canary, all day long... I believed she started singing before she could talk.
Great-grandma was tall and lean...with heavy bones though. When she first fell off the bed and the young woman tried to pick her up she barely could do it.
- I'm too heavy for you dear...this old bitch forgot she couldn't walk, got out of bed to go to the bathroom and fell.
-Oh, my God, for how long have you been laying in there?
- I don't know, I tried to get up after you left...but I couldn't call your grandmother you know? Her heart, she couldn't take it...
That was the first time, she had been laying on the floor for hours, her head twisted on the floor, her long body in some unbearable position. She had pulled the blanket down to cover herself and waited patiently for the grand-daughter to come back home. It had been around five hours, she'd usually leave for the afternoon to the university, come back in the evening. It was almost impossible to pull her back up on the bed. They still managed to laugh. She always had a way to make you laugh in the most terrible situations.
- Growing old is quite a piece of shit.
Bernarda was born in 1903.
You know I was born in 1903, ...the first radio, the first tv, the first car...the men in the moon...that was my nephew who sat with me, smart, the little roasted ass...beautiful green eyes though... his hair, ohhhh my, it looked like a toilet brush...how did your mother fall for that quarter of an oz??? Uhhh, but smart, intelligent, you got your brains from him, that's for sure. He sat like you do now, and tell me everything that was going on, that was a day, I'll never forget that day.
-Grandma?
-Yes sweetie...
-How is father your nephew?
-Well...not really my nephew, but that's how they used to call me, aunt...he and his brother, how beautiful his brother, Tó looked like a little girl...
She laughed out loud sitting in the golden couch, the cigarette half-lit...
-Crap, more ash on the carpet, let me step on it dear, move, move...
The red carpet had a good couple of ash marks on it, burned to the bottom, the little girl used to let her fingers roll from one to another, just feeling its bareness. The dog started growling like it always did anytime one of the kids got closer to great-grandma.
-Showing your teeth you old hag? smiling? you're smiling? She laughed while tightening the doggy's jaws. When she let go he still didn't budge, with his belly up, his front paws traced around her arm while she patted him.
-Those looser fucks left me the dog and never came for it...uhh, wouldn't give the little stinker away now...we need to cut your hair stinker... go get the scissors dear, they are probably on the sewing machine...
As soon as the dog heard the mention of cutting his hair he fled from her arms running to the kitchen. They both laughed.
-Grandma don't cut his hair, he looks so ugly after...
-What, take him to the "salon"?!!!! I don't have money to have someone cut his hair, just get me the scissors girl.
The dog was a poodle, or reminded you of a poodle, grey, with "rastas", really!! I don't think he smoked weed but it would surely have suited him, no one brushed him and the hair would just end up making him look like Bob Marley on a good day. Grandma would get the scissors and cut the "rastas" randomly, while the little girl hoped she wouldn't cut the dog. She couldn't see so well anymore and sometimes would cut the dog a little, just a little... after the "hair treatment" the dog looked like a half way, or should I say third way shaved sheep!!! He'd hide under the blue couch, the amazingly beautiful blue velvet couch. As you look around in the living-room there are incredibly beautiful things. The navy blue velvet couch, soft like heaven must be...the golden high chair with ears, where great-grandma used to sit...literally ears that would extend to the front a little and where her head used to rest. The red carpet. The colors fill the room with warmth, and when the sun hits through the large six pane window on the back of the golden chair no one can actually watch tv because of the glare. No one wants to watch tv, the little girl sings Brazilian music continually, great-grandma holds her hands and dance, they dance the tango, well she tries to teach her baby girl who laughs and lets herself roll in her great-grandma arms, the tango, the flamenco. The flamenco was her favorite, she'd get the castanets and let her wise, a little crooked by arthritis fingers make the magic sound while her body swayed and swirled enveloped in the long black robe she wore around the house. The help, an old lady, maybe twenty years younger than her didn't help anymore except for the morning tea, she'd clap. Most of the time she'd be dozing on the sewing machine. Many decades ago she had been hired as the seamstress. Back then there where the nannies, the cleaning maids, the gardeners, and her. Lucinda was her name. Lucinda was a single mother who had left her honor and her only daughter behind, with some relative, so she could send her all the money she ever made. Lucinda worked for the well-being of her daughter, for the love of the numerous little kids who filled the house in the last 30 years, and especially to pamper the little boy, brother of the little girl, the youngest of three. Lucinda would drag her heavy body, her varicose legs onto the kitchen and clap. The dog would peek from underneath the kitchen stool and for some moments forget about his terrible hair and just enjoy the music...two old ladies, a child and an ugly dog as happy as they could be. The kitchen was wide and long, with butter colored armoires and marble sinks. The floor was marble too and it stretched almost all the way to the windows. Three big windows almost always open, the sun jarring through. When she was smaller, a toddler, that's where they'd sit her, distracting her with the passing cars and buses hoping she'd eat. "Here comes the airplane!!!"and stuck a spoon full down her throat. Now she would seat on the marble counters, step up to the stool and then to the cold counter, in-between the old radio and the toaster. Funny I can't describe the toaster, only the smell of the toast. The radio was pretty, shiny, dirty white and dark brown. The radio never played Brazilian songs...where did the little girl learned them no one knows... or better saying, they all forgot. After great-grandma passed, and after that her grandma, there was only the godmother to remember her childhood, but she had only lived in the house for a couple of years and actually never wondered about her singing. She sang like a yellow canary, all day long... I believed she started singing before she could talk.
Great-grandma was tall and lean...with heavy bones though. When she first fell off the bed and the young woman tried to pick her up she barely could do it.
- I'm too heavy for you dear...this old bitch forgot she couldn't walk, got out of bed to go to the bathroom and fell.
-Oh, my God, for how long have you been laying in there?
- I don't know, I tried to get up after you left...but I couldn't call your grandmother you know? Her heart, she couldn't take it...
That was the first time, she had been laying on the floor for hours, her head twisted on the floor, her long body in some unbearable position. She had pulled the blanket down to cover herself and waited patiently for the grand-daughter to come back home. It had been around five hours, she'd usually leave for the afternoon to the university, come back in the evening. It was almost impossible to pull her back up on the bed. They still managed to laugh. She always had a way to make you laugh in the most terrible situations.
- Growing old is quite a piece of shit.
Bernarda was born in 1903.
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