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recognizing the particular and untransferable existence of another person, she accepted the stranger in him with the reverence of love. At that moment she could have said, "I recognize you in you." And if the funniness of it lit up the man beyond the
fear of wondering, she would also be the great wonderment for
him at last and he would say to her, "And I recognize in you,
you." And that is how it would be, and it would be everything,
for that was most likely love.
The girl grasped his hand and feeling it warm and still wet,
she sighed deeply and gave a little laugh. The fact was that she
scarcely believed in her own skill: that night she had conquered
fear. And even bemused by sleep, she had known enough to run
to be close to a man because a man did not have the softness of
women, a man denied the other life for an instant. Lying there
pensive, Ermelinda understood what a frightened girl friend of
hers had said one day, "I want to get married because it's very
sad for a person to be all alone." Ermelinda gave the phrase a
very special sense of warning, because her friend too was a
person who, for example, was afraid of the dark. And it was true,
Ermelinda reflected very sensibly. Because when she had been
married, her husband had had schedules and habits, which had
done so much to take away the breadth of the world. And even
when they had lived in the city it had been different : in shops
and stores life was smaller, it fit within her without fear and not
like in the damned country. She should have stayed in the city
and got married again; that was it, yes, that was what she should
have done. And tomorrow, tomorrow she would tell Vit6ria
that she was leaving, because right now she was getting the proof
that that was what she ought to do, now that she was snuggling
up against Martim, and a man takes away that freedom which a
person all alone feels as the foretaste of a greater freedom.
It was then, with a smile of sleep upon her face, well-armed
with what she might tell Vit6ria on the following day, that
the girl left the woodshed, still befuddled, stepping on the wood
chips and the mud, walking carefully in the dark so that she
would not fall.
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The Apple in the Dark
And it was then that, as if her eyes had been looking straight
at herself, that she had the idea of herself as if she were looking
at herself; and what she saw was a girl all alone in that dripping
world, with one shoulder uncovered by the sheet she had trouble
wrapping up in, her hair hanging loose, and that face on whose
facile indecision had now been painted the joy of living.
And seeing herself, she stopped so suddenly that her feet
slipped in a puddle of water and her helpless hands grabbed for
the tree which had been thrown up in front of her in the dark.
And as if she herself were a lost stranger who suddenly had seen
that girl all alone in the rain, she shivered all over. She was alive
and she glowed with horror. Could she have been alive in that
life or in the other one? Perhaps she had gone beyond the vague
horizon, like the birds who go and come back . . . She thought
that maybe she had died in the arms of the man without
knowing it because she had given her body to him, and her soul
was there, white and vacillating, with that sweet joy which the
girl was not aware could also come from the body.
Perhaps because, having tripped, she was almost kneeling
and did not have to be audacious to do what her heart asked of
her; perhaps because, being out of the house at night for the first
time, she had broken some law of possibility-now she did not
have to be brave in order to complete the half-gesture of a fall,
and then she knelt down by the trunk of the tree that had hurt
her, and without any shame asked God that she might be
eternal. "I am I ! " she begged Him, not as a privilege, but to
make it easier for Him to grant the tremendous exception. "Oh
God, let me always have a body!" The tears were running down
her still happy face which, startled, had not had time to change
its expression. "My God," she finally confessed, feeling that with
it she was confessing a great sin-"I never want to see You! " She
felt horror for God and His sweetness and His stability and His
messengers of peace. "I don't want to die because I don't
understand death ! " the girl said to God. "Please don't judge me
so superior to the point that You will send me death! I don't
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deserve it! Sneer at me because I am inferior, any life is enough
for me! And I'm not intelligent, I was always backward in
school, why give me so much importance now, then? It's enough
to put me aside and forget about me, who am I to die! Only
privileged people should die! Whom are You asking the truth
from ! You can give it to anyone who asks for it!"
She leaned her face against the trunk as against another
wrinkled face, and she smelled the odor of dirty mud that is so
reassuring and simple, the smell of her own life on earth; then
she leaned with desire and love against the dirty tree trunk,
where her mouth was glued in supplication. And out of pity for
herself, it was as if God were telling her:
"That's the way it is. People live and people die."
Had that not been what she had felt that afternoon when
she had been hulling corn? Whoever accepted the mystery of
love accepted the mystery of death; whoever accepted the fact
that a body that is not yet known fulfills its own destiny, accepted then the fact that our fate goes beyond us, we die, that is.
And we die impersonally-and with that we go beyond what we
know about ourselves. There was- something impersonal in the
fulfilling to which the girl simply said amen-and a person only
shouted when he was taken by a pain or by surprise and it
became personal. The girl was confused and tired, leaning
against the tree trunk. Underneath it all she understood herself
and she understood. Her way of understanding was what had
become so difficult through the mystery of words.
It was more or less that which she felt in her state of sleepiness and love, embracing the good trunk of the tree for the love of which we are so well created, clinging to the tree, liking so
much its good, hard knots, hoping that for many, many, many
years she would be able to smell the odor of things, happy
birthday. The unnatural position was breaking her in two. But
she could not manage to say good-bye to the warm perfume
which was coming out of her sleepiness and fatigue, the smell a
body makes as it lives; and once more she breathed in the
freshness of the wet leaves, that smell of rain which is like the
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The Apple in the Dark
bitter taste of nuts, and her blind hands felt the rough tree
which was made for our finge
rs, and the wet ground on her
knees. AII of that is our joy, aII of that which gives us so much
pleasure, and if we are so weII created for that, then-then
Ermelinda, so tired now, had the wish to give in at last and to
foIIow her calling at last, which was to die some day.
Chapter 4
WHEN MoNDAY DAWNED, the sun was so strong that the water in
the puddles was gasping with the heat and the bees were already
making their rounds among the wounded flowers, and it was as if
there had been a party and the decorations had not been taken
down yet. In a short while a new heat had taken over, made up
of green woollen leaves and body dampness, an unpetaled heat,
and already by nine o'clock its soul was rotting among swarms
of mosquitoes. A few greenish pieces of fruit had been squashed
on the ground for the curiosity of the ants; on the surface of
the puddles the dusty threads of fallen spider webs were strung
out. But a few diligent spiders had already built new shiny links
in the air. With attention brought on by unconscious hope one's
glance would accompany the silk threads they moved rapidly
from one tree to another, filling in again the space that the rain
had caused. At nine o'clock only the spider threads were delicate
in the light. Everything else had the exhaustion of satisfaction,
the wetness of felt which is difficult to dry, and the weight of
its own weight. It had rained everywhere.
With renewed strength, the mulatto woman was singing in
the hot kitchen. The rain of the night appeared to have been in
everyone's imagination, what happens at night has no use in the
daytime. Martim's eyes were red from lack of sleep. His fatigue
was worse than he had calculated, and his mouth had the taste
of sleep that had not been slept. "I was in the woods last night,"
he thought, obstinately reducing what had happened to him to
this : he had been in the woods and when he had come back
Ermelinda had come to the woodshed. "A fresh girl," he
thought, fatigued and without malice, looking at her from the
distance and seeing her with her hair parted sensibly again as if
nothing had happened. Sunday night seemed like an absurdity
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The Apple in the Dark
to the man, and he could not really remember the details very
well; being in the woods, which "did not mean anything after
all" -and that was why he spat into the plate from which he
had just eaten. "Later. I'll think about it later," he said to
himself. "There's still time." It would be quite easy to take the
truck at nightfall, and when they heard the noise of the motor
he would be far away. He still had some time, relatively speaking, being still just a charade for the professor. "Later," he thought.
The mulatto woman was singing and Ermelinda said to her
as she drank her coffee, "Last night I had such a fear of dying
that you can't imagine! I thought the whole world was going to
collapse! "
"No such luck, Dona Ermelinda ! " the other one said
happily.
They both laughed. But they grew silent like accomplices
when they heard Vit6ria's steps coming through the living room.
In the old black slacks again and her blouse open at the neck,
with her hair in a bun, Vit6ria was coming in from the fields.
She did not know what time it had been when she had had her
coffee; she had waked up so active, as if she had lost time that
she had to make up with the rain.
"Today's the day," the mulatto murmured, nodding at
Vit6ria. "Today's the day we're going to catch it" -and Ermelinda agreed in silence.
But Vit6ria did not even look at them as she passed through
the kitchen. She was worried about other problems-she had
decided, for example, that they would finally have to cut down
the old apple tree because it bore fruit only rarely and even then
the fruit was sour, and especially because it was taking up good
land. But now the moment of decision had come because a bolt
of lightning or a gust of wind had broken off some branches,
which were hanging down like rags across the crotch.
Martim rebelled a little; he thought that it was a shame to
destroy the beautiful tree. Vit6ria insisted, and she turned red as
she insisted. He looked at her, listened to her argue, and offered
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a mute resistance. The woman became more and more insistent
that the tree come down, as if the repugnance that the man
showed for the chore was inciting her.
So, after a few orders had been given to Francisco and other
matters had been decided, Vit6ria followed Martim and his axe,
and she stationed herself near the tree to watch-and she was
resolute, as if the chopping down would be a question of
minutes. One of her feet was resting determinedly on a rock.
Martim sluggishly began to cut the first round notches. She,
as if prepared to witness a violent and quick destruction, became
restless with the man's slowness, and she could barely control
her face that was being taunted by the sun.
"Faster," she finally whispered rapidly and softly, unable to
restrain herself any more.
He did not turn around or even break the slow rhythm of his
strokes.
"How long before it will fall?" the restless woman asked.
"That all depends."
"Maybe you'd like me to get Francisco to help you? Maybe
you can't do it alone?" she suggested, impatient for a reply.
"That won't be necessary," he said at the same time as
another hard blow rang out. "Slow but sure."
"But I don't want it to be slow," she thought, kicking with
her boot at the gnarled roots that were scattered about, protruding far from the old black tree that in its strength was barely trembling under the blows of the axe. They remained silent, the
sun was getting higher and becoming stronger. It was a restless
silence, full of flies. The chopping was taking on a regulated
rhythm:--small chips flew away, damp and white, showing how
young the tree still was inside. The woman sat down on one of
the outcroppings of the roots, and the man, without stopping his
work, took a quick look at her. The silence continued, the flies
were shining, dirty and blue; the restless dogs were smelling each
other. A whistle was heard far off, a fall was heard far off; the
flies were shining black.
The woman's heart began to pound rapidly when she finally
( 2 6 6 )
The Apple in the Dark
asked with a calm face, but so upset that she did not hear her
own v01ce :
"Why did you come here?''
She heard nothing in reply. Only the axe-blows were making
any sound, deepening the circle around the trunk. And with
great relief she came to believe that she had not spoken and that
she had only heard her own thoughts. Her ears, which had been
prepared for an answer, could only hear the gurgling of the river.
But he replied :
"I separated from my wife and I went away."
W
ithout even noticing that she had just learned that he was
married, she said :
"But why did you come here precisely?"
"It might as well have been here as well as any other place."
She realized that he had said that he was married.
"The first impression I had of you was that you were a
fugitive! " she said then very harshly.
"In a manner of speaking," he said.
And having said it, he slowly interrupted his work. He threw
the axe aside. He turned around and faced her.
The woman became a little pale. A slight tic made her
mouth and her left eye contract simultaneously, and it gave her
the innocent air of someone caught in the act.
"You," Martin stated without anger-"you only want me to
chop down this tree so you can keep me in one place and ask me
questions."
"Me? Of course not!" she answered, and the truth had been
revealed so suddenly that the woman felt innocent before it.
"I already told you. I separated from my wife and I went
away."
"But you seemed to be running away . . ." she could not
help saying, full of curiosity.
"People run away from things like that too," he replied with
extreme care, not turning his cold eyes away from her face for a
second.
They remained there looking at each other; both of their
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faces were raw in the open air and red from the sun. There was
not a wrinkle on the woman's face that was not showing, but
since she did not know it she lifted up her head suddenly with a
good deal of haughtiness.
Then, even though the thick tree was barely wounded,
Martim turned to go away as if the job had been done.
"Stay here," she said hurriedly and harshly. "I want to talk ! "
"I already told you," h e repeated even more harshly. "I separated from my wife and I went away. Does the professor have to know any more than that?" he added, calm and cruel.
She did not seem to have heard, but she grew pale :
"That's not what I want to talk about! " she cut in quickly,
surprised at herself.
Martim assumed a stiff air of strict expectation, as if he
meant to go away as soon as she said what she had to say.
"I want-I want to talk about Ermelinda," she suddenly
invented.