From the opening chapter of the new edition of Narcisa: Our Lady of Ashes
I open the door and step inside my new neat little doll house. It smells of mildew. A putrid, nostalgic scent of the past, scent of memories… I pull the string and turn on the 40 watt light attached to an old wooden overhead ceiling fan, surprised it works. A high cieling… I look around. I vaguely remember the furniture. A masculine, no-frills little loft bed with nice fluffy feather pillows at the top of a short wooden ladder. Good. A comfortable old leather sofa. Two chairs, a little table, a tiny kitchen with a small fridge. No television. Good. A pile of books in Portuguese, my native tongue. Occult Spiritism, mostly. The Book of Spirits. The Gospel According to Spirits by Alan Kardec. Chico Xavier’s Nosso Lar. I’d read some of those books years ago in another long-forgotten haphazard quest for sanity.
I go into the bathroom, have a piss. Flush the toilet, brown water fills the bowl… Flush again and it’s replaced by clean, clear water. Decent water pressure for Rio de Janeiro plumbing. Better than what I got used to in a Mexico City Colonia. I test the faucet on the dirty seafoam green porcelin bathtub, looking out the large window by the shower at a scruffy green plaza five stories below.
I open up the window and smell the lush humid air of the city, hear its lumbering machinery pounding and humming, buzzing in my ears. Ship’s horns. Motors. Sirens. Roosters. Dogs. People. I’m still alive. Good...
I walk back across the little apartment, throw open the dirty whitewashed shuttered windows, the wooden door to a tiny dust coated Portuguese tiled balcony with the same sunny green view, a comfortable view. A blank canvas. Yeh, clean this place up and this will be all right for me. I can do this here now…
Not much else in the way of personal items in there though. It looked as if somebody has already pretty much cleaned the place out of any valuables. I guess that’s what happens when you die. I don’t really care. I’ve never cared much for televisions or valuables or personal effects. A motorcycle and a change of clothes. A few good books, some spending cash… Freedom, that’s about all I’ve ever aspired to.
And, just for today, that’s cool too… Now I gotta get out. The night is calling.