Near to the Wild Heart Read Free Page A

Otávio... But all this was much briefer, a simple look of surprise could exhaust all these facts.
    Yes, she had a touch of fever. If sin existed, she had sinned. Her whole life had been a mistake, she felt useless. Where was the woman with the voice? Where were the women who were merely female? And the continuation of what she had initiated as a child? She had a touch of fever. The outcome of those days when she had wandered to and fro, renouncing and loving the same things a thousand times over. The outcome of those nights, lived in darkness and silence, tiny stars twinkling on high. The girl stretched out on the bed, her eye vigilant in the waning light. The whitish bed swimming in the darkness. Weariness creeping inside her body, lucidity fleeing the dusk. Tattered dreams, awakening visions. Otávio alive in the other room. And suddenly all the weariness of waiting concentrating itself in one nervous, rapid movement of her body, the muffled cry. Then coldness, and sleep.
     

... One Day...
    One day her father's friend arrived from afar and embraced him. When they sat down to dinner, Joana, bewildered and contrite, saw a naked, yellow chicken lying on the table. Her father and the man were drinking wine and the man kept saying from time to time:
    — I just can't believe you've got yourself a daughter...
    Turning to Joana with a smile, her father said:
    — I bought her in the shop on the corner...
    Her father was happy, yet continued to look thoughtful as he kneaded his bread into tiny balls. From time to time, he would swallow a mouthful of wine. The man turned to Joana and asked her:
    — Did you know that the pig goes grunt-grunt-grunt?
    Her father interrupted:
    — You're really good at that, Alfredo... The man was called Alfredo.
    — Can't you see, her father continued, that the child is no longer at an age to be playing at being a pig...
    They both laughed and Joana joined in. Her father gave her another chicken wing and she went on eating without any bread.
    — How does it feel to have a little daughter? the man asked, still chewing.
    Her father wiped his mouth with his napkin, leaned his head sideways and replied smiling:
    — At times it's like holding a warm egg in my hand. Sometimes I feel nothing: a total loss of memory. Now and then, I'm aware of having a child of my own, my very own.
    — Missie, missie, bissie, lissie... the man sang, looking towards Joana. What are you going to be when you grow up and become a young lady and all the rest of it?
    — As for all the rest of it, she doesn't have the faintest idea, my dear fellow, her father declared, but if she won't get annoyed with me, I'll tell you what she wants to be. She has told me that when she grows up she's going to be a hero...
    The man laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Suddenly he stopped, held Joana by the chin and as long as he remained there holding it, she couldn't chew her food:
    — Surely you're not going to cry because your daddy has told me your secret, little one?
    Then they began to discuss things that must have happened before she was born. At times, they were not even the kind of thing that happens, but just words — also before she was born. A thousand times she would have preferred there to be rain because it would be so much easier to sleep without being frightened of the dark. The two men went to get their hats before going out; then she got up and tugged at her father's jacket:
    — Stay a little longer...
    The two men looked at each other and for a second she couldn't be certain whether they would stay or go. But when her father and his friend put on a serious expression then laughed together, she knew that they would stay. At least until she was sleepy enough not to lie down without hearing rain, without hearing people, or to be thinking of the rest of the house, dark, empty and silent. They sat down and smoked. The light began to twinkle in her eyes and next day, as soon as she awakened, she would go and visit the