The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray Read Online Free PDF Page B

of his duties.
    But now she felt content, looking at the corpse in the almost luxurious coffin, wearing a black suit, his hands crossed over his chest in a pose of devout contrition. The flames of the candles rose up, making his new shoes gleam. Everything was quite proper, except for the room, of course. It was a consolation for someone who had been so afflicted and had suffered so much. Vanda felt that Otacília must be feeling happy in the distant circle of the universe where she was. Because her will had finally been imposed: Her daughter had restored Joaquim Soares da Cunha, that good, timid, obedient husband and father. All she had had to do was raise her voice and tighten her face to have him there, sensible and reconciled. There he was, his hands crossed over his chest. The tramp had disappeared forever, the “senator of honky-tonks,” the “patriarch of the red-light district.”
    It was too bad he was dead and couldn’t see himself in the mirror; couldn’t witness his daughter’s victory, that of the proper and outraged family.
    In that moment of intimate satisfaction, of complete victory, Vanda had wanted to feel generous and good, forgetting the last ten years, as though the competent people from the funeral parlor had purified them with the samewet, soapy rag with which they had removed the filth from Quincas’s body. Remembering her childhood, her adolescence, her engagement, her marriage, and the peaceful image of Joaquim Soares da Cunha, half-hidden in his canvas chair reading the newspaper, trembling as Otacília’s voice would call out in reprimand: “Quincas!” That was how she was thinking about him, feeling tenderness for him, for that father she had missed, and with a little more effort she might have been capable of a little sentimentality, feeling herself an unhappy and desolate orphan.
    The room was growing warmer. With the window closed the sea breeze could find no way to enter. Nor did Vanda want it: Sea, waterfront, breeze, the streets that climbed up the hillside, the street noises—they were all part of that now terminated derangement, its existence ended. All that should remain there were herself; her dead father, the late Joaquim Soares da Cunha; and the fondest memories he had left her. She dug into her past for forgotten episodes. Her father taking her to a merry-go-round that had been set up on the Ribeira on the occasion of a feast day at the church of Bonfim. She had probably never seen anything so delightful: a grown man up on a child’s saddle, bursting with laughter, he who smiled so little. She also remembered the tribute his friends and colleagues had paid him when Joaquim had received a promotion at the Bureau of Revenue. The house was full of people. Vanda was a young girl then, just starting to date. The one who was all puffed up with contentment that day was Otacília, in the center of a group that had formed in the living room, where there were speeches, beer, and a fountain pen presented to the clerk. She looked as if she were the one being honored. Joaquim listened to the speeches, shook hands, and accepted the pen without showing any great enthusiasm. As though he was bored by it all and didn’t have the courage to say so.
    She also remembered her father’s face when she told him about Leonardo’s impending visit after he had finally decided to ask him for her hand. He had shaken his head and muttered, “Poor devil.”
    Vanda would brook no criticism of her fiancé. “Why poor devil? He comes from a good family, has a good job, and isn’t one for drinking and debauchery.”
    “I know that, I know that. I was thinking about something else.”
    It was strange: She couldn’t remember many details about her father. It was as if he’d never had an active part in life at home. She could spend hours remembering Otacília: dinners, little things, her expressions, events where her mother was present. The truth is that Joaquim began to figure in their lives only on