What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire?: A Novel Read online

  WHAT CAN I DO WHEN

  EVERYTHING’S ON FIRE?

  OTHER BOOKS BY

  ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES,

  TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH

  South of Nowhere (1979)

  Knowledge of Hell (1980)

  An Explanation of the Birds (1981)

  Fado Alexandrino (1983)

  Acts of the Damned (1985)

  The Return of the Caravels (1988)

  The Natural Order of Things (1992)

  The Inquisitors’ Manual (1996)

  The Fat Man and Infinity (2009)

  WHAT CAN I DO WHEN EVERYTHING’S ON FIRE?

  Translated from the Portuguese by GREGORY RABASSA

  ANTÓNIO LOBO ANTUNES

  W. W. NORTON & COMPANY

  New York • London

  Copyright © 2001 by António Lobo Antunes and Publicações Dom Quixote English translation copyright © 2008 by Gregory Rabassa

  Originally published in Portugese as Que Farei Quando Tudo Arde?

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  Production manager: Devon Zahn

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Antunes, António Lobo, 1942–

  [Que farei quando tudo arde? English]

  What can I do when everything’s on fire? / António Lobo Antunes; translated from the Portugese by Gregory Rabassa

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-0-393-06953-2

  I. Rabassa, Gregory. II. Title.

  PQ9263.N77Q8413 2008

  869.3'42—dc22 2008013189

  W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

  500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110

  www.wwnorton.com

  W. W. Norton & Company, Ltd.

  Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London

  WIT 3QT

  DEDICATED

  to Marisa Blanco for her pitiless friendship

  to my cousin José Maria Lobo Antunes Nolasco, who’s gotten

  me out of some tight spots

  and to the poet Francisco Sá de Miranda, so much at home

  here, coming from the sixteenth century to

  supply the title of this book.

  I am you and you are me; where you are, I am, and in all things I find myself dispersed. Whatever you find, it is me you are finding; and when you find me, you find yourself.

  (Epiphanius, Haer. 26.3)

  Contents

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  MAP OF LISBON AND ITS ENVIRONS

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  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  PAULO ANTUNES LIMA son of Judite and Carlos

  CARLOS/SORAIA drag queen, father of Paulo, lover of Rui

  JUDITE (maiden name is Claudino Baptista)—teacher, wife of Carlos, mother of Paulo

  RUI Soraia’s lover, Paulo’s friend

  MR. COUCEIRO (Jaime Couceiro Marques)—Paulo’s guardian, retired World War II veteran

  DONA HELENA Mr. Couceiro’s wife, Paulo’s guardian, housewife

  NOÉMIA COUCEIRO MARQUES the Couceiros’ dead daughter

  DONA AURORINHA Carlos’s neighbor on Príncipe Real

  ALCIDES later lover of Soraia

  DONA AMÉLIA candy seller at the club, friend of Carlos

  GABRIELA MATOS HENRIQUES maid in hospital dining room, lover of Paulo

  SECONDARY CHARACTERS

  ABEL LOPES MARTINS Mr. Couceiro’s grandfather, Isabel’s father

  ALBERTO Dona Amélia’s uncle

  AQUILES father of Gabriela

  CAMÉLIA Judite’s blind mother, Paulo’s grandmother

  CARMINDO new lover of Gabriela

  CRISTINA (and Elizabete and Márcia) fellow teachers of Judite in Lisbon

  CORA grandmother of Judite

  DÁLIA girl on tricycle in Bico da Areia, later seen by Paulo in Chelas

  ELISA lover of Luciano

  FIRMINO uncle of Gabriela

  FLORIANO store clerk, lover of Judite

  MR. FREITAS Marlene’s stepfather

  ISABEL LOPES MARTINS Mr. Couceiro’s mother

  JOÃO Rui’s father

  JÚLIA Paulo’s girlfriend in Personnel

  LUCIANO Paulo’s doctor at the hospital

  PROFESSOR MAIA ONOFRE newspaper columnist

  MARIA DA SOLEDADE Mr. Couceiro’s grandmother, Isabel’s mother

  MERCÊS Julia’s mother

  OFÉLIA Rui’s mother

  ORLANDO BORGES CARDOSO Rui’s grandfather

  OTÍLIA sister of Gabriela

  PEDRO Rui’s uncle

  PILAR friend of Rui’s aunt

  SERGEANT QUARESMA Dona Aurorinha’s uncle

  ROSENDO former fiancé of Dona Aurorinha

  VIVALDO orderly at hospital

  DRAG QUEENS (in order of mention)

  ANDREIA

  BÁRBARA

  ALEXANDRA

  NINI

  SAMANTA

  CAROLE/ANTÓNIO (has a daughter in France, niece of Aura; childhood neighbors are Dona Eunice, Álvaro, and Fernanda)

  VNIA/MARCELINO Gonçalves Freitas

  MILÁ

  MICAELA

  MARLENE/JOAQUIM (son of Lurdes)

  RICARDA (Brazilian)

  DINA

  SISSI

  LUCI

  CRISTIANA

  VANDA

  CARLOS/SORAIA’S LOVERS AND CUSTOMERS (in order of mention)

  RUI

  BEATO

  FAUSTO

  ELISEU

  LUCIANO

  AGOSTINHO

  TADEU

  ERNESTO

  MÁRIO

  FLORIANO

  DINO

  EURICO

  JÁCOME

  FERNANDO

  LICÍNIO

  ROMEU

  HERNANDO

  MAP OF LISBON AND ITS ENVIRONS

  WHAT CAN I DO WHEN

  EVERYTHING’S ON FIRE?

  CHAPTER

  I WAS SURE

  I had that dream last night or the night before last night

  and that’s why, without waking up, I kept thinking

  —Why worry I know damned well that I’m

  not interested in any episodes I knew weren’t real

  —I’m asleep

  that might have scared me yesterday, I’m not scared of them now

  —Why should I get all worked up if it’s nothing but a lie

  aware of the position of my body in the bed, a twist in the sheet under my leg that’s hurting me, the pillow

  as usual

  sliding between the mattress and the wall, my fingers

  by themselves, on their own

  looking for it, grabbing it, pu
lling it up, tucking it under my cheek, which was tucking itself into the pillow in turn, which part of me is pillow and which part is cheek, my arms were holding onto the pillowcase and I was helping my arms

  —They’re mine

  amazed that they belonged to me, aware of one of the plane trees outside there, a blur on the windowpane at night and day now, getting into my sleep, making me lift up my head

  just my head because the twist in the sheet was still hurting me

  looking through the window to the office where the doctor was writing out a diagnosis or a report

  the desk, the chair, and the cabinet all old, the door always open

  where the patients would lie in wait to beg for cigarettes, unshaven, with deadeyes

  I could never eat fish eyes in a restaurant, my uncle would stab with his fork and I would be blinded, screaming

  they don’t pay any attention to me, nobody ever pays any attention to me, all the orderlies do is shove me along

  —Let’s go let’s go

  and the fishes sitting on benches, their hands out, begging for cigarettes, my uncle lowering his fork

  —Don’t you like eyes, Paulo?

  the desk, the chair, the cabinet, the doctor signing something or other, looking at me, quickly picking up his fork, moving it toward the sea bream or the gilthead, I do like eyes, uncle

  —You can go home tomorrow

  and while I was waking up and a dove was bobbing up and down on a branch of the plane tree, the twist in the sheet stopped hurting, the fish that I am separated itself from the pillow which isn’t me after all, my uncle was amused and retreating into last night’s dream, in which pills had changed into conger eels into puppets, and were asking me for cigarettes

  —Don’t you like eyes, Paulo?

  the man gasping on my right for example rising up on his mattress like a drowning man on a slow swell, his wife would visit him on Sundays with a small bag of peaches and he would dismiss the peaches which he never finished with a wave of his hand

  —Did you bring me any butts, Ivone?

  my mother Judite, my father Carlos, the doctor, not this one, a fatter one,

  I remembered the doctor’s red necktie when they brought me in, a Gypsy woman who was hollering

  or was I the one hollering?

  the doctor

  —What’s your mother’s name?

  along with that I remembered the attendants, who were holding me by the wrists, from the ambulance Dona Helena had called

  —Take it easy, fellow

  all those plates smashed in the kitchen, the pitcher still intact, the hands on the clock keeping watch over the stew

  —Destroy us

  maybe it was the attendants who had helped me instead of the fat doctor with the red tie, not in this office but in a room with no windows or a closet where the Gypsy woman or I was hollering or maybe neither one of us, the noise of the dishes

  —What’s your mother’s name?

  my mother Judite, my father Carlos

  —Did you bring me any butts, Ivone?

  five cigarettes on Saturdays but you run out of cigarettes, a chit for a glass of milk at the bar but the milk can’t stand up straight and it spills all over the counter the minute you touch it, the orderly cleans the counter, cleans our jackets and chins with a rag that’s the fossil remains of a towel, the television ranting up on a high shelf

  —Damned pigs

  cake that crumbles as soon as you bite into it, sandwiches with resistant meat, the cigarette lighted with the tenth match on the filter end as a tiny little flame devours the cotton

  —They don’t even notice it, the poor devils

  the match goes out too soon or refuses to go out and burns your skin, the certainty that I’d dreamed those days last night or the night before and so why worry since back beyond the day before yesterday, all I can remember is a Gypsy woman hollering and my being strapped down to the bed, by the ambulance attendant maybe

  —Take it easy take it easy

  the cup I stole from the dish rack smashed on the floor, Dona Helena in tears, I’ve got to break these plates, the pitcher intact, offended

  what I liked about the pitcher

  asking

  —How about me?

  the doctor with two or three psychologists or students or customers from the disco where my father worked and the branch of

  the plane tree finally quiet as always at noontime, its elbows on the wall pushing back the row of sparrows over its brow, cats in a thicket of thorns or beside the garbage from the dining room where a girl wearing a cap was emptying buckets, the doctor to the students

  —They live inside themselves, they have practically no feeling, it’s so hard to help them get to feel again

  giving me a basket of peaches no, giving me a cigarette, the match lighting when it should light, going out when it should go out, the ashtray full of ashes and with it like that where can I put my ash, I think Dona Helena’s husband went along with the attendants pointing to the carpet, the floor

  —He gets ashes on everything

  I think the doctor

  They live inside themselves, they don’t even know their own families

  and the psychologists or students or customers from the disco who made fun of my father repeating in obedient notebooks they live inside themselves, they don’t even know their own families, the doctor’s wedding ring advancing across the desk,

  —See now

  the pen tapping on the desk top, waking me up, aware of the position of my body in the bed, of a twist in the sheet under my leg

  —Paulo

  smashing the pen and the plates in the kitchen, Dona Helena took the pitcher with the line of a break where they’d glued it back together, away from me, the pen still moving along on the desk stopping me from smoking

  —Paulo

  the second coffin and my pretending not to notice it

  —What’s your mother’s name?

  and at that point, almost without realizing it, I began to laugh, when my father died I began to laugh just like that, people on long benches, a little old man with a painted mouth and a lap dog in his arms, the second coffin that I pretended not to notice, the priest came out from behind a curtain and I was lying over the casket laughing

  —What’s my mother’s name you say, what’s my mother’s name you say?

  preventing the psychologists or the students or the customers from the disco from getting a look at the corpse and ridiculing it, my father’s a clown with feathers and spangles and a wig, padding on his behind, his breast, the painted mouth of the old man with the dog bristling at me barking, once I took my father’s mastiff with a bow to Príncipe Real park where they used to play with me on the swing, there were fish in the pond, I never threw cracker crumbs to the fish

  —Eat your cracker, Paulo

  I unhooked the leash

  —Get lost

  and the animal was hesitant, hiding under the furniture dribbling piss on the rug, if we’d bought him a glass of milk at the hospital bar he would have spilled it on the counter, my father cleaned the dog’s snout with the rag that was the fossil of a towel, I threw stones at him until I made him disappear around a corner, terrified, confused, the bow was becoming undone and wrapping around his legs, if only I could have thrown stones at my father

  —Get lost

  until I made him disappear around a corner, the feathers, the spangles, the wig, if only I could have stopped laughing

  —They live inside themselves they don’t even know their own families

  without a single tear to hide the coffin, the music, the cone of light that was rising up onto the stage and my father singing

  not my father, a clown with feathers and spangles and a wig not the clown, a woman, all those plates to smash in the kitchen, the bottles of perfume in his room, the nail polish, the lipsticks, the razor to hide his beard, skirts and more skirts on a clothes rack, if only I could have thrown stones at the…
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