Nowhere People

Catarina’s friend has incredibly good taste in interior design, a rare skill in making the best use of space. It isn’t by chance that Catarina feels so at ease in this apartment, in this kitchen, and always asks her friend if she can borrow it when she needs to be alone with someone without having to resort to the embarrassment of going to a motel or to risk running into her great-aunt (a situation still unresolved). She opens the fridge, takes out the glass bottle of water, goes back to the living room and stands face to face with him. (She doesn’t know that in the masked man’s pocket is a poem he wrote for her less than four hours ago.) ‘You all right?’ Donato asks. ‘I don’t know … I did something really stupid a while back … ’ Catarina says. ‘Welcome to the Circus Catarina,’ he tries to put her at ease. ‘I’m not kidding … I did something wrong … Or not something wrong, but something that went wrong … It was just before I met you, and … it’s ridiculous … because I swore to him, to this guy I like a lot or … it’s just I swore to him I wouldn’t tell anyone … but I can’t do it, I’m up to my neck in this … ’ He interrupts her. ‘What are we talking about, Catarina?’ She takes a few steps back and sits down. ‘About a guy … a guy I still love … ’ It was supposed to be the most important day. ‘Who you love? … And do I know him?’ he asks. ‘No. I’d rather you didn’t even know who he is.’ She starts to cry. ‘He hurt you.’ Donato tries to keep his cool. ‘Worse … He forced me to … ’ She falls silent. ‘Forced you to?’ he ventures. ‘An abortion … ’ she says, sobbing. ‘He was violent, is that it?’ Donato asks sympathetically. ‘He convinced me, he persuaded me, he blackmailed me … I thought I would get over it, but it wasn’t like that … I wanted the baby, I really wanted a child, because it was this guy’s child … you understand?’ He has to interrupt her. ‘And you’re telling me this because …?’ She lies down on the sofa. ‘The chant from that day outside the DMAE water-tower … it … after I heard it, in some way I can’t explain … it helped me understand how much I regretted having got rid of the baby … When I closed my eyes and just tried listening to you … For those minutes I felt like the baby I got rid of was still with me … I mean, inside me … except it wasn’t going to grow, wasn’t going to come out, be born — oh, I don’t know … But at the same time, and this is the crazy thing, it was comforting to admit what I was feeling,’ she says, and dries her tears. ‘You know it isn’t really like that. It wasn’t a baby yet.’ She sits up again. She’s looking better. ‘I know that, I’m not a complete idiot.’ She takes a deep breath. ‘What matters is that … finding you, a faceless stranger, doing something I respected from the very first moment … in a way it made me stop and admit that I’d made a mistake … and it’s nothing to do with morality … it’s just that I wanted,’ she starts crying again, ‘I really wanted … ’ Donato tries to make her see reason. ‘A child isn’t a toy, Catarina … and at this point in your life, you know … You’re still so young … ’ She gives him a crazy smile. ‘I bother everyone so much already … a child wasn’t going to make a difference … know what I mean?’ Not letting him go on, ‘He made … the bastard made me swear that I’d keep it secret … It’s awful, it’s an awful feeling … And the son of a bitch … he won’t even speak to me any more … he just cut me off … I’ve been feeling so weird … a stranger when I’m around other people … ’ and she looks at him. ‘Except me … Am I right?’ She lowers her gaze. ‘Almost,’ she says, awkwardly. ‘That chant … ’ she starts speaking again. ‘If I were to choreograph it … and if I got into it … I thought it would help me face up to the situation … that we could be partners and we’d fall in love with a shared piece of work … and we’d fall in love … but you’re so different, you aren’t all jumbled up with the others … with the string of idiots I’ve known … the idiot I am … you’re not jumbled up with anything.’ He considers saying that she isn’t being clear, but he doesn’t. ‘I think you’re idealising me, Catarina,’ is what he says. ‘You idealise me, too,’ she murmurs. ‘I’m sorry. All along I’ve tried hard to understand you, not as an artist or … but for God’s sake, if you’d just take that mask off at least … You can’t even come out from inside this bizarre character you’ve created, this messiah figure I invented and you joined in … Know what I mean? I’ve tried to imagine what you must be running away from to get you to a point where you put on that mask and bury yourself so deeply in all this madness,’ she complains. ‘I have a purpose,’ he says. ‘A purpose,’ mimicking him, his serious tone of voice and São Paulo accent. ‘Catarina,’ and Donato’s voice comes out even more serious than usual. ‘What?’ she softens. And he says: ‘I don’t want to live any more.’

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poem written not long ago

to drive out the mornings

to stand the past to attention

to cry in front of you

to have imaginary children