Nowhere People

He is staring at the bloodstain on the white sheet. He awoke agitated, like she’d never seen him before, said that he was going out for a run and would be back in an hour at the most. She did not reply, she just stayed there, still, on the single bed. Alone in the house. She needs some thought, she needs some reaction, because the satisfaction she’s feeling is huge and reckless and solid (she feels ready, fortunate, she took in the night before, the mingled smells between the two of them, the new texture clinging to her skin). The minutes pass quickly. Paulo comes back (it’s very possible that he exercised for less time than he had promised). Maína is in the same position. He lies down in front of her, he says they need to tidy up the house, his parents will be arriving in the evening. Maína gets up, takes him by the hand, they walk to the bathroom. She steps into the shower cubicle, he turns on the taps, regulates the water temperature, takes off his clothes. The warmth is pleasant, it replaces their perspiration. She takes his index finger with one of her hands and his forearm with the other, repositions him (positions herself), and puts Paulo’s finger inside, tries not to think about the day when last night’s luck will run out on them.

Eleven-thirty in the morning. Silently Maína is tidying herself up (and even when he hands her the Polaroid photo of the two of them wearing the clothes she had created, suggesting that she tape it to one of the pages of her exercise book, she still feels awkward). The house is in order. He says he’ll take her to the encampment. They drive away, up the road towards Bento Gonçalves and then out of the city. At the end of the Castelo Branco expressway, not long before the exit to the slope that leads onto the bridge, he pulls the Beetle over, asks if she wants to stay with him for one more day. Looking straight ahead, Maína accepts with a nod. Paulo keeps on going towards the state’s northern seaboard. He makes a few amusing comments but, though she looks at him alertly, she does not smile. Almost at the end of the journey they come to the stretch near the Barros lagoon, its expanse made up of water that comes down from the mountains, he pulls into a lay-by, gets out of the car, stands there taking in the north-eastern wind that is blowing hard on his face. She gets out of the Beetle and, finding the smell of the sea curious (not knowing it), she lightly touches Paulo’s waist and then puts her arms around him. ‘Ok, Maína?’ he asks, not turning round. ‘It should have passed, but is stronger now,’ she says, drily. The lagoon is filled with ghosts, that’s what his parents would tell him when the four of them used to drive past in the brown Volkswagen Brasilia towards their old summer house on Capão da Canoa Beach, his parents always in a hurry, always right on time — close up the house in town, get into the car, don’t stop till you’re outside the beach house. This haste to do things (and reach places) is supreme in Paulo. This is the first time in his life he’s had the patience to stop the car and look out at all that water, standing there wrapped in the arms of this girl who had also spooked him one day. ‘For me, too,’ he replies, and invites her to sit on the low concrete wall. She runs over to the car, gets a little jacket that used to belong to her older sister, in one of the pockets is the Polaroid picture, then comes back and settles herself beside him. Legs swinging in the air, Paulo’s moving less than hers. Maína puts her hand in the jacket pocket, takes out the photo and only then looks at the result, noticing something he already knew: though the composition was good, the picture was out of focus.