Stubborn Archivist Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Part I

  The Big House

  Stubborn Archivist

  2014

  Part II

  1991

  Natal

  Suco de Cajú

  1997

  Vovó Cecília, A Love Story

  A Casa Amarela

  2010

  The Goldilocks Zone

  A R—– By Any Other Name

  The Sound of the Sea

  Part III

  2015

  Tiago

  Mum-mãe

  2001

  Ana Paula, A Love Story

  Coragem Alfredo

  Leaving (Coming)

  2015

  Christmas

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH

  First U.S. edition

  Copyright © 2019 by Yara Rodrigues Fowler

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Rodrigues Fowler, Yara, 1992– author.

  Title: Stubborn archivist / Yara Rodrigues Fowler.

  Description: Boston : Mariner Books, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018042566 (print) | LCCN 2018045915 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358007067 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358006084 (paperback)

  Subjects: | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Coming of Age.

  Classification: LCC PR6118.O346 (ebook) | LCC PR6118.O346 S88 2019 (print) | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018042566

  Cover design and illustration by Christopher Moisan

  Cover photographs © Shutterstock

  Author photograph © Atri Banerjee

  v1.0619

  FOR MYSELF

  Only a house as quiet as snow, a space for myself to go, clean as paper before the poem.

  —The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros

  Part I

  The Big House

  The big house appeared from behind conker trees on a quiet street by the common.

  It’s late Victorian

  Yes

  These houses were built after the construction of the railway as they turned the farmland into the suburbs

  Yes

  They had come just the two of them, for one of the first times since the baby was born they were out together.

  Richard opened the iron gate and stepped into the front garden. It was regrowing untidy with the spring.

  He turned to his wife. We’ll get rid of this gravel. I could plant a ceanothus here by the path.

  Isadora looked at him. Which is that?

  It has those tiny flowers that fall like grey blue dust onto the floor. Richard spread his arms—Over time it can grow into a large bush.

  She nodded. It is very nice that one.

  Richard stood inside the carved brickwork arch at the front of the house. He looked at the front door. He looked at Isadora.

  She touched the morose little bird depicted in the off-brown stained glass of the door.

  She looked at Richard.

  We can get rid of this, no?

  He paused.

  It’s depressing. I want bright yellow birds or soft orange squares or something.

  He looked at the bird and then he looked at her.

  She laughed at him—I’m serious Richard.

  Inside, he ran his hand along the ribbed wall of the corridor, taking slow strides towards the back of the house.

  Isadora stood behind him in the corridor. She regretted its closed door presence. Unlike her husband, she felt no secret thrill at its twee Victorian geometries—the cracked diamond tile floor, the textured wallpaper, the high up faraway light fixtures.

  To their left there was a large bay window living room facing the street, and behind that a dining room facing the garden. Richard gestured to the second door—We could turn this into a TV room, or a playroom or a library.

  But—she called her husband’s name—but Richard, I don’t see the point of such a big house.

  He paused.

  I like the little flat. We are just three after all. We don’t need a big house like this.

  He turned to face her.

  I like the little flat. She approached him and put her hand on his arm—What’s wrong with the little flat?

  He frowned at her, and then he smiled. But what happens when your mum comes to stay, and your father? And don’t you want Ana Paula to have her own room and not sleep on the sofa and be woken up when we go to work?

  Isadora was quiet.

  And eventually the baby will want her own space.

  Isadora frowned.

  It’s only down the road. It’s not a big change.

  She put two arms around him. I know this. You are right. I just like the flat.

  And then her husband said—Isadora this is a good house. Look.

  They walked down the corridor to the dark kitchen that needed new cabinets. On the back wall there was a door and a set of concrete steps.

  Richard opened the door.

  Look at this garden.

  Isadora looked at it.

  Hot sunlight crossed its long and low sunk rectangle through the alley gaps between the other houses. It was full of knee height nettles and other grass green plants she didn’t know the names of. At the back of the garden, by the fence, there was a row of lime trees.

  Isadora was quiet.

  Then she said—We could have a dog, Richard.

  Her husband frowned.

  Just a small dog, Richard. Woof woofwoof.

  They were quiet.

  Richard said—Where I grew up we had a huge garden. This is small but it’s good for London.

  Isadora nodded. At her parents’ house Isadora had not had this sort of garden either.

  Isadora chewed Richard’s house words in her cheeks—

  skirting board

  mantel piece

  banister

  hearth

  trellis

  chimney

  coving

  terracotta

  wallpaper paste

  When she had thought of Europe, Isadora had always imagined herself walking into an open plan room with glass for walls.

  That night in the flat, while the baby was asleep, Isadora whispered—

  Richard did I ever tell you about my mother’s yellow house?

  Yes.

  Oh. Isadora yawned.

  Richard yawned.

  My dad said he will put a pool there, for the baby.

  That is very kind of him.

  We could go at Christmas.

  Christmas at the beach!

  Yes.

  I would certainly enjoy that—

  The baby made a noise.

  Of course, they bought it. Even in 1992 with the derelict house next door and the late night activity on the common it was all their savings and a mortgage it would take them twenty years to pay off, but they bought it. As Richard had said, this was a good house.

  Both of them had been brought up to buy a house. Go to medical school, and then buy a house like we bought this house, their parents had told them.

  And in the months after they had moved in, when the trees were full of leaves and tiny flowers were falling like blue dust onto the floor, Isadora took a photograph of her husb
and standing in front of the house, holding the baby. She sent it to her parents.

  Both of them had been brought up to buy a house. Each of them was two generations away from someone who had built their own house in the earth and three generations away from some faceless predecessor who had never owned or built any house at all. (Isadora’s mother had a little yellow house by the sea.)

  But it was the late Victorians who had built this house. Although Richard sanded the floors and Isadora put up the bookshelves. And, that summer, as the baby who called to them in two languages learnt to walk, Richard planted a white and yellow rose bush in the garden, which was small admittedly but big for London.

  And, slowly, Isadora unbuilt the house.

  With each trip back she brought something new, covering small pieces of kitchen wall and staircase and armchair surface with twisty red blue orange blue colours. At first she brought small things—a ceramic bowl, a palm-sized wooden toucan, a little statue of a woman in a red dress dancing—and then big. Oversized checked baggage, does anyone have a spare suitcase big. Beaded yellow netting to hang from the picture rail, a huge abstract painting of a forest to go above the sofa, a green string hammock for the trees at the end of the garden.

  And in the kitchen there was always orange yellow fruit in the fruit bowl and a pressure cooker on the stove. Isadora went to the market on the high street to buy dendê and shrimps and cassava and when the season was right ripe Kesar mangos that tasted as wet and soft as mangos from home. And after work she would try to cook the dishes that she had eaten as a child, and she would underdo them or over-salt them and lose her patience but when they sat down to eat Richard would say—Very nice! Very nice indeed.

  This was the house that they would rush leave every late December, packing and locking and unzipping rezipping.

  This was the house that they would quiet arrive to every January. Cold, staid and dusty, in need of arriving rewarming.

  This was the big house that her baby would grow up in, that her baby would learn to walk in, in all its heated sofa space and down the concrete steps into the garden.

  Years later, when they had the money again, Isadora insisted they got big glass doors at the back of the house—No, not like a conservatory, like a glass wall onto the garden.

  This was her house unbuilding, her slow house mending.

  Because after all, as Richard had said, this was a good house. This was the big house that meant that Isadora would never be poor, and that her baby would never ever be poor and would always be safe.

  Stubborn Archivist

  The first time we met

  Hey—I recognise you

  Yes

  What’s your name?

  He repeated the syl-la-bles.

  Yeah that’s nice, where’s it from?

  It’s from Brazil.

  Jeeeez. He bent over and whistled. I love Brazilian girls though!

  Ha, okay.

  My name’s Leo—he held out a hand formally, his hair flopped over his forehead—it’s French, it means lion.

  Oh right.

  She paused.

  Yeah there’s a similar word in Portuguese.

  He looked at her hard.

  You speak Portuguese?

  She looked back

  Something I don’t talk about and I regret

  I can talk in Portuguese in bed

  Okay yes do it

  Okay

  Kissing

  At first there was standing up kissing

  hands on face and jaw and waist kissing

  And then there was up in the air legs around his hips

  open mouth close mouth open mouth tongue kissing

  And then lying down on the grass kissing

  lying down on the sofa his whole body over her

  everywhere over her

  (murmuring between kissing)

  this is how

  this is how

  this is how we’ll do it kissing

  Haircutting

  One day he said, his hand on her neck—

  Would you ever grow your hair?

  I grow it all the time.

  No. Seriously, you know past your chin let it get all long and flowing?

  Yeah I don’t think so.

  All messy and all over your back!

  I don’t want messy hair. You’ve seen pictures—it wasn’t as flattering.

  I thought it looked nice.

  No.

  Especially when it was all in a bun and coming out

  No, I like this. I look older like this.

  Yeah, but you know you could have that sexy Eva Longoria, Penélope Cruz hair, falling all over the place

  Yeah. But I like this. I look different, you know, Anna Wintour, Victoria Beckham—

  Who’s Anna Wintour?

  Um you know the real life Meryl Streep from Devil Wears Prada.

  Why do you want to look like her?!

  I dunno.

  I thought you liked my hair

  I do.

  Going out

  For the two of them the nighttime was the best time. Anything can happen and everything is exciting when you’re a sixteenyearoldpretendingtobeatwentyoneyearold in London at night.

  These nights began always sat cross-legged on the floor, in her bedroom or in Jade’s bedroom—whoever’s parents were out. They played music through little speakers and spread all their make up and earrings and eyeliners and high heels on the carpet.

  They planned, put their make up on carefully. Baby wipes ready, prepared if necessary to start it all over again. Beginning, clandestine, knowing, consultative, meticulously to wreak new adult faces hands and bodies.

  This black dress?

  No too young looking

  What about the red one?

  Looks like you’re trying too hard

  But—

  I know but

  What about these black jeans and the lacy thing?

  Yes Mum I’m staying at Jade’s tonight, I’ll text you when I get there. Of course I’ll be safe. Yes I’ll say hi to her mum from you. Yes you can have a hug. Big hug big kiss

  Dark lipstick

  Red lipstick

  Liquid eyeliner

  a long swish soar in the night coat that had been Jade’s mum’s

  They would go to the liquor store the corner, where they would talk too loudly about doing their tax returns, and then they would clickclack clack rush down the empty escalator and neck wine from the bottle on the Northern Line while playing drinking games, and nervously they read over the text from Jade’s cousin’s friend about how they didn’t need ID but if anyone did ask—

  And they would trip lipstick emerge into the glass streetlight dark where they never felt cold. Jade always knew the way through the big streets and the back streets to the doors that led down downstairs

  And in the dark Soho night they would say—

  I’m a fourth year studying zoology at Edinburgh

  My name is Esmeralda

  My name is Ana Paula

  I’m a visiting student from Rio

  And could my friend Esmeralda also have a cigarette?

  Yeah actually you have a bit of an accent

  My name is Minerva McGonagall

  Not going out

  Sometimes they never made it out, or ended up at a party down one of the quiet residential streets in Furzedown where all the houses had the same Victorian front room dining kitchen terraced set up and they ended up in a house with Elena and the boys in their year from school who sat at the back of someone’s garden with their hoods up in the rain or in a shed smoking a too loosely rolled spliff and drinking cans of cider, and then there was that time that girl in the year below had had a party and they’d thrown her dad’s vinyls around her muddy garden like frisbees.

  One time when Jade’s mum was away the two of them had stayed in and hadn’t invited anyone else over except Elena and they drank the dusty fancy-looking whisky at the back of the cupboard in Jade’s living room (refilli
ng the green glass bottle with water and putting it back in the cupboard after) and they had drunk it on its own at first and then with orange squash. My mum has it with water, Elena had said, and they had shaken their heads in disbelief.

  That night they laughed and then they cried and argued and cried again and Jade vomited into the wardrobe.

  Leaving the house one night

  Hey how you doing

  Fine, thank you

  Where you going darling

  Out

  You don’t look like you’re from here.

  What?

  Like, you don’t look like you’re from here

  What do you mean?

  Dressed so smart, you know

  Well I live here I am from round here

  Coming home

  Men talked to her a lot. Especially on the night buses back south.

  I have a boyfriend, sorry.

  Nah you’re just saying that

  No really I do, his name is Leo.

  Is it now

  He’s tall and handsome and he’s going to be a doctor

  Aw come on you didn’t need to tell me that, I believe you you know.

  Never have I ever

  Never have I ever kissed a boy

  Never have I ever kissed two boys in one night

  Never have I ever kissed a grown up man

  Never have I ever kissed a girl

  Never have I ever had sex

  Never have I ever tried to have sex

  Never have I ever been drunk in front of my mum

  Going out out

  And in the dark Soho night there would be dancing

  drunk tipsy where’s my oyster card dancing

  night bus first tube sunrise dancing

  high heel red dress lipstick dancing

  loud loud laughing Lydia Bennet laughing dancing

  Honeymoon

  They lay in his big bed. In his flat, which was just his to pay bills for and clean and decorate and walk around in because although she was still at school, he had left school now, was a serious adult student studying in the same hospital as her parents and what mother wouldn’t approve of that.