This Is Our Place
FOR RAFAEL.
WHEN I’M WITH YOU, I’M HOME.
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Ana
Greg
Beto
Ana
Greg
Beto
Ana
Greg
Beto
Ana
Greg
Beto
Ana
Greg
Beto
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
About the Translator
Here the Whole Time Teaser
Also by Vitor Martins
Copyright
I AM A HOUSE.
Not in the metaphorical sense, like my eyes are windows into my soul or something. I am literally a house. Brick, concrete, two bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and garage. Wooden doors, built-in closets, rusty pipes that make the shower water smell funny, and an electrical system that hasn’t been updated since the 1980s and always melts the fridge’s plug and shocks people whenever they turn on the light switch in the small bedroom.
That part’s fun. The shock thing.
I could have saved this reveal for the end. Left you with your mouth wide open upon realizing that, this whole time, I was the one telling these stories. Number 8 Sunflower Street. But I’m not great at keeping secrets, and I like wondering how you’re imagining me right now. Like those psychological tests where you draw a house to determine your personality type. If you draw a house with no ground around it, just floating on white paper, it’s because you think your dad doesn’t love you. If your house is yellow with a red roof, that means you have an irrational fear of clowns or spiders. Something like that. I’m not sure how those tests work because I’m not a psychiatrist. Like I said, I am a house.
My story is nothing special. I was built in 1963 in a vacant lot on Sunflower Street in downtown Lagoa Pequena, a rural city in the state of São Paulo that rose to fame in the mid-1990s when it became the setting of a primetime soap opera, but no one gave much thought to this tiny place or its twenty-eight thousand residents after that. But I like it here so much that I never dreamed of moving.
That was a joke.
I can’t move.
I thought it best to explain since I don’t know if everyone gets house humor.
But I really do like it here. As far as I can tell, Sunflower Street is a great place. Lots of trees, dogs taking their owners for walks, and a sweet flower name that’s infinitely better than other streets named after racist members of a monarchy that doesn’t even exist anymore, or corrupt politicians who were so honored after they built a school and a clinic. Sunflower Street is an oasis in the middle of all that chaos. As far as I know, anyway. I barely have any time to visit other places.
(That was another house joke.)
The stories that happen inside me are way better than my own. And there are many of them, by the way. Being a house, I’ve had a lot of different people living under my roof. I’m sure that owned houses are jealous of rented houses; imagine having to live forever with the same family, listening to the same stories, the same gossip about Aunt Silmara who went through a midlife crisis and got herself a boyfriend fifteen years her junior, or Cousin Tadeu who either is gay or finds a new best friend every six-and-a-half months. My stories go way beyond Silmara and Tadeu (both of whom have made perfectly acceptable life choices and do not deserve their cruel, gossipy family).
I call them “my stories” because I’m possessive. And because it works both ways. The residents call me “my house,” so I don’t see any problem with calling their stories mine. They’ll never know, anyway, because I’m very quiet. At least, I always have been. But now I’ve decided to break my silence.
You know when people say, “Oh, if these walls could talk?” They do. Or, “Careful what you say, the walls are listening”? They are. Or even, “Whoa, it’s as if this house can read my thoughts!” Fine, no one ever says that one. But I can. Not every thought, of course. Just the loud ones. The ones that scream in your head, desperate to pop out at any moment. It’s impossible not to hear them. It’s hard not to notice the details when they’re happening inside me.
So, the next time a visitor comes over to your house and you say, “Come in! Don’t mind the mess,” remember: I mind.
I mind the dishes you haven’t washed in six days just because the weather turned, and now the dirty coffee mug buried under plates is starting to grow mold. I mind the pile of laundry behind the door and the dust that is accumulating on the top shelf because you think no one will ever see it, anyway. I mind the wine stain on the couch that you tried to hide under a quilt, and the nail holes on the wall that you covered with toothpaste because you read online that it’s cheaper than buying Spackle.
But I’m not as focused on the mess in me as I am on the mess in them. That’s the mess I like to pay attention to. The confusing thoughts that keep them up at night; the tears that fall out of nowhere when an unexpected song starts playing; when they sing in the shower to forget all their troubles; the hours lost in front of a mirror making faces and asking, “What if this were really my face?”; the catastrophic fights followed by apologetic kisses that, deep down, still taste of anger.
I can feel all of it. I pay attention to all of it.
And now it’s my turn to speak. Metaphorically, of course. I can’t speak.
I am a house.
DECEMBER 31, 1999
Ana knew the Y2K bug wasn’t going to happen. In part because her father, Celso Carvalho, the computer genius of Lagoa Pequena and the surrounding areas, had spent the last six months watching every sensationalized newscast on TV, yelling, “Y2K IS NOT GONNA HAPPEN!” while pacing from one room to the other with a cup of coffee in his hand and an old T-shirt that read SUPER DAD.
Celso makes a living taking apart and fixing computers, installing software from a mountain of CDs, and speaking in a technical jargon no one else understands. If your computer has an issue, Celso can take care of it. If humankind is threatened by a mysterious Y2K bug that will cause the loss of data, power, money, and sanity, Celso will reassure you. Because he knows everything, and Ana trusts him.
Still, the two decided to spend New Year’s Eve at home, just in case. In the final moments of 1999, Celso doesn’t seem too sure that the world isn’t about to collapse.
Five … four … three … two … one—
The TV is still on, fireworks go off outside, the electricity remains intact, and the computer is working normally. No alien invasion or sign of the apocalypse at the turn of the millennium.
Ana and Celso let out sighs of relief as Celso opens a bottle of hard apple cider.
JANUARY 1, 2000
“You can have a sip, honey. You’re already seventeen,” he says, serving the drink in two different wineglasses. The family’s dinnerware collection is all mismatched because Celso breaks something every time he decides to clean the kitchen.
“I think I’ll pass, Dad. I don’t really like cider that much,” Ana answers, letting it slip that she has tried hard cider before, contrary to what her innocent Super Dad might think. “I mean—apple! This is apple cider, and I’m not a fan of the fruit—apple—which I have definitely eaten many times because I love to eat fruit.”
“Except for apples. Which you seem to hate all of a sudden,” Celso points out, not putting any stock in her blabbering.
“Precisely,” Ana responds with a silly laugh that only her dad can bring out of her.
“Stop being silly, go on,” Celso insists, handing her the prettier of the two glasses. “It’s the start of a new millennium! We need to celebrate. What will the next thousand years have in store for us? Where will we be on the eve of the year 3000?”
“Hopefully dead.” She accepts her dad’s invitation and takes a sip of the acidic drink just to confirm that she does, in fact, hate hard cider.
“You never know,” Celso retorts. “Technology might advance in unexpected ways. Maybe they’ll put my consciousness in a machine. I could live forever.”
Ana laughs at the image of a robot with her dad’s face, flannel pants, wobbly aviator glasses, his full head of gray hair hidden under a ’98 World Cup hat. That is, if in the future robots have hair. And clothing.
“Dad, imagine what a nightmare it would be to live over a thousand years!” Ana says. “Imagine the amount of stress you’d have! I’m sure they’ll come up with a new millennium bug every ten years.”
“So a decade bug, then?”
“You know what I mean. Living over a thousand years would be the worst thing ever.”
“It’s only a good thing when it’s the vampires of those books you love, huh? Your old man’s pushing forty-five, and he’s as good as dead,” Celso says, lowering his hat to hide a goofy expression.
“Lestat is only two hundred fifty-nine years old,” Ana informs, a little embarrassed to have this information on the tip of her tongue, having just reread The Vampire Lestat. For the fourth time. “Fine. I’ll let you live a little longer than him, okay? Is three hundred years enough for you?”
“I think so,” Celso answers after a few moments of reflection. “I could annoy you plenty for three hundred years. Pick on every single boyfriend you bring home.”
“Don’t count on it,” Ana says with a tight smile that wants to shout, “BECAUSE I LIKE GIRLS!”
But despite understanding lines of code, every odd noise that comes from any machine, and bl
inking lights on a monitor, Celso is terrible at reading between the lines. Ana’s heart grows heavy in her chest as she sinks farther into the couch, the cider warming in her glass.
Whenever the conversation turns to boyfriends, she never knows what to do. Ana pulls at the cords of her old purple sweatshirt, asking herself what kind of luck the color purple will bring for the new year.
The TV continues to show fireworks from all over Brazil, and Ana watches the images in silence. People celebrate on beaches, wearing colorful glasses in the shape of the number 2000, their eyes peeking through the two middle zeros. Many make offerings to the sea, hoping that the new millennium will bring brighter days. Footage of the stock exchange shows old men in ties celebrating the fact that the new year didn’t cause any damage that would have left them less rich.
Father and daughter watch TV together until the silence grows uncomfortable enough.
“I think I’m going to bed,” Ana lies. She won’t be able to fall asleep.
“I’ll stay here a little longer,” Celso answers, pointing at the computer in the corner of the room that just went into sleep mode, displaying a screensaver of a never-ending labyrinth.
Celso is a night owl. He prefers to work when the house is silent, and it’s always in the wee hours of the night that he scatters on the table his memory cartridges, hard disks, and spare parts from the computers he’s putting together for his clients. During the day, he sleeps like a bat. Or a vampire.
Ana is just like her father, except for the sleeping-during-the-day part. She never sleeps. Not literally, of course. Ana is a human being; she needs to sleep. But sleep is never a choice, she always puts up a fight before it wears her down in the end. Tonight will be one of those nights when her thoughts are so loud that all the fireworks in the world won’t be capable of stifling them.
“Don’t stay up too late, okay?” Ana says as she gets up from the couch and leaves the half-empty glass of horrible cider in the kitchen sink.
“Sweetie,” Celso calls out before she can burrow into her room. “This is going to be a good millennium.”
“Kind of risky to assume that of the next thousand years, don’t you think, Dad?” she teases.
“It’ll be good. Things will change. I can’t explain it yet, but I just know it. And I always know these things.”
They say good night with a smile and Ana closes her bedroom door, ready to begin her ritual of thinking too much and sleeping too little.
I have two bedrooms: a big one and a small one. Ana took the big one because Celso does all he can to leave the best of everything to his daughter. He sleeps in the small bedroom, containing his twin bed and an old wardrobe he bought secondhand, covered in stickers on the inside of the doors. But it’s not as if he didn’t take up half the living room with all the paraphernalia required in his line of work.
In the big bedroom, Ana created her own universe. The bed sits in a corner, right next to the window, and is surrounded by posters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, clothes strewn all over the floor, piles of books that she intends to read someday, and a little shelf where she keeps the CD collection she just started.
That’s another perk of being Celso’s daughter: She can score the newest technology before anyone else in school. Ana was first in her class to get a Discman and, despite the annoying speed at which the device consumes batteries, she cannot live without her portable CD player. Being able to lie in bed, cozy up with a blanket, and put her headphones on maximum volume so the music plays louder than the thoughts in her head is one of Ana’s favorite parts of a normal day.
Here is a list of the thoughts inhabiting Ana’s mind these evenings:
I wonder if deep down my dad still blames me for the loss of my mom.
I wonder if my principal in fifth grade was right—that I am the way I am because I didn’t grow up with a mother figure?
I wonder if one day I’ll wake up and know exactly what I want to be when I’m older.
I wonder if the way I think compulsively about Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet actually means I don’t like girls exclusively, or just that he looks like a cool, determined lesbian in that movie?
I wonder if one day I will be a cool, determined lesbian.
I wonder if the future will be a little less complicated than the present.
I wonder if Letícia is thinking about me right now.
I wonder if I’d look good if I dyed my hair and cut it short just like Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo + Juliet, or if I’d run the risk of looking like Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.
Letícia, Letícia, Letícia.
Sometimes the order of these thoughts varies. They also don’t all come at the same time every day. The haircut thing, for instance, comes about only once every fifteen days. The stuff with her mom is a weekly occurrence. But for the last six months, Letícia, Letícia, Letícia is a recurring theme.
And it’s Letícia Ana thinks about as she slowly riffles through the CD rack, trying to decide which one will be tonight’s soundtrack. The first night of the year 2000 has to be special. Ana puts a lot of stock in first times within new cycles. The first song played in a year, the first socks worn on the first day of school, the first movie watched after the nearby theater was renovated. Silly things she won’t even remember two months later, but that, in the moment, feel important.
Unlike the rest of the bedroom, the CD rack is well organized. Each CD is arranged alphabetically by artist, and sub-arranged by year of release for artists that have more than one. But today her three latest additions to the collection sit messily on top of the rack.
Madonna’s Ray of Light, which she bought on a complete whim on one of her visits to the record store down the street. Ana didn’t have it in her to buy Com Você … Meu Mundo Ficaria Completo by Cássia Eller out of fear of what the middle-aged clerk would have thought of her, as everyone knows Cássia Eller likes girls. But she refused to leave the store without a new album with a beautiful woman on the cover.
Ana eyes the album next to Madonna’s, from which five men wearing all white gaze back at her with mysterious eyes on the cover of Millennium by the Backstreet Boys. That one was a Christmas present from her dad, who probably went to the same record store where she’d spent twenty-seven minutes staring at the album cover photo of Cássia Eller wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt and panties before Ana gave up on buying it. Celso would have walked up to the clerk and asked what the best present for a seventeen-year-old might be. Ana had only listened to the album a couple times, because she thinks she’s too old for Backstreet Boys, but she sings “I Want It That Way” in the shower when she’s alone and has included Nick Carter in her list of blond men with hair parted in the middle that she’s still not sure whether she finds attractive or if she just wants their haircut.
Last, Ana holds firmly in her hands the most important CD of them all. Partially for its sentimental value, but also because the plastic case is broken and at risk of falling apart at any moment. Enema of the State is the most battered album in Ana’s impeccable collection. Theoretically it’s not Ana’s, but she doesn’t plan on returning it to Letícia because Letícia doesn’t care at all about objects with special meanings, and to Ana, this Blink-182 album marks the beginning of it all. The beginning of the two of them.
Ana believes that this could be a good way to start the year and, with all the care in the world, she removes the disc from the dilapidated case and puts it in her Discman. She skips the first song because the CD is scratched and that track stops playing after one minute and thirty-eight seconds. Ana once again wonders if she will ever know how “Dumpweed” ends.
She adjusts her headphones on her head and lies down in a comfortable position to let the volume of the drums and the electric guitar take over her body as she attempts to fall asleep. How she’s able to fall asleep with this loud music in her ears is a mystery, but that’s how it goes with Ana. She doesn’t fully understand the lyrics in English and, for the parts that her brain cannot translate, she just makes up something that works in Portuguese with words that rhyme. Maybe this exercise is exhausting enough to force her to get some rest, even if just for a couple of hours.
Today there’s no room for haircuts, conjectures, memories of the mom she hasn’t met, or attempts to figure out her own dad. Today in Ana’s mind there’s only Letícia. What wouldn’t Ana give to be a billionaire, own a cell phone, and use it to call Letícia. Create an environment with just the two of them, no interference. No “Hi, Dona Celeste, this is Ana. Is Letícia around?” But if Ana were indeed a billionaire, the last thing she’d worry about would be a phone to speak to Letícia. She would buy a car and run away with her to a different place, leaving no trace behind. Assuming Letícia knows how to drive, of course. Because Ana doesn’t and is generally terrified of cars. A plane trip could be a good plan B. Leave to a different country. Somewhere where she and Letícia can go for a walk holding hands and not be afraid.