NADA

In São Paulo, the sprawling Brazilian metropolis, there were nearly twenty million people, but only two social classes; those who have and those who want.

Guto wanted.

Guto was sixteen and thought he might explode. Every day, he woke up, went to school, and went to sleep hard. Even though he tried with relentless determination, all of his high school girlfriends were still saying, “No!”

Maria lived next door and was twenty-five. She was from the countryside of Pernambuco, dropped out of school in the 6th grade, and still never learned to read. She had married her husband, Arnaldo, soon after her fifteenth birthday. Her father was already dead and there were eight other siblings in the house. Plus, the mother of his once-hidden, second family now had the gall to knock on their door the first day of each month, prepared to scrap it out for a piece of the deceased’s measly, pension check.

Arnaldo was a construction worker from Bahia, with a job offer and flaunting bus tickets to far-away São Paulo. He had appeared at their door one Friday night, like he had radar for desperation, removed his hat, and sized up Maria’s potential by inhaling deeply.

Maria only wanted to live in a less-crowded house and said, “Yes,” to Arnaldo’s quick marriage proposal. In those days, Maria knew nothing, but wanted true love. She was so naïve and backwards, Maria thought she would spend her wedding night kissing and that being kissed would be as sweet as drinking Coca Cola; all bubbles and wet sparks.

Arnaldo knew nothing about romance. With one knee, he pushed his trembling bride towards the pink-and-red, heart-shaped bed in the love motel’s honeymoon suite that charged by-the-hour, figuring he’d be done in less. He removed their clothes with his calloused, brick-laying, hands like he was husking corn, and then rammed the know-nothingness out of her, slapping Maria, with plank-like force, when she screamed that she didn’t want him that way and it hurt too much.

“You’ll like what I give you,” Arnaldo said.

Maria was convinced she had died right then and there, and at that moment was really floating high above on the ceiling like a white, frilly-smocked angel on Communion Day. She shook her head at the broken woman who was lying below her in tatters; sickeningly framed by a wall display of cupid, complete with a flashing-neon, strobe light, “love you,” written between his bow and quiver.

The next morning, when Maria realized the nightmare was actually her life, she returned to her mother’s with a suitcase full of doubts.

“I can’t,” she said, and her hands shook. “I don’t…”

Her mother, an old lady at thirty, bent her stiff back, and made a complaining face as she picked up the youngest child from their house’s dirt floor.

She shrugged and said, “I can’t help you. He’s your husband now.” Her mother stared blankly into the distance while she formed her parting words. “You’ll love the children, if not the man.”

Later that day, Arnaldo and Maria boarded a bus to São Paulo. Maria still wore her white virgin’s veil and did nothing but cry during the two-day journey.

From then on, there was no time to think about regrets. For the first five years of their marriage, Maria was pregnant or changing diapers or both. They had two girls and a boy. Maria stayed home to care for them.

Arnaldo soon gave up on the wear-and-tear of construction and became a city cop. At last, he could pulp people and get paid, and even promoted. He wore his gun slung low on a leather holster and eventually became famous. With one shot, the gossips said, Arnaldo could part a man’s hair or immobilize him. He kept Maria the way he liked it: neither seen, nor heard.

Now, a cement wall separated Guto’s house from Maria’s in the working-class, squalor of the periphery of São Paulo. Here, when it rained the unpaved streets ran red with dirt and houses were painstakingly built over time by their owners; tic-tacked together with mismatching cinder blocks and finders-keepers, scrap metal. The wall between Maria and Guto included homemade security; shards of broken bottle glass that reached towards the sky like claws.

Every morning, Maria stood at the gate to kiss Arnaldo and watch him leave for work. By now, Arnaldo walked dragging his left leg. Everyone in the neighborhood knew what had happened.

A year ago, Arnaldo was called to break up a bloody, knock-down-the-walls, domestic dispute between a husband and wife that had ended with shots firing. The bullet the wife shot to kill her husband, had grazed Arnaldo instead. Nothing worked right anymore and, out of shame, Arnaldo lost all desire for Maria.

Maria swallowed a daily dose of reality with her morning coffee. Even if she wanted to, she couldn’t leave.

Maria depended on Arnaldo for everything and she did love the children. To forget, she would sit on the sofa in front of the television which fed her talkity-talk, shows which only offered her more recipes to quell his stomach, but did nothing to feed her heart. Instead, she would pull all three of her babies into her lap, and imagine she could smother herself with their warm and squirming limbs.

At times, instead of relief, loneliness overcame Maria and she cried while she washed the dishes. Her tears fell into the soap bubbles and caused them to melt.

On one of those warm days, during the year that Guto thought he might explode, Guto stood on a chair, like a weary ship’s captain looking for any piece of dry land, and gazed over the wall to secretly observe Maria in her kitchen. Every nerve in his body tingled with need.

Aparecida, Guto’s widowed mother, smelled deceit in the air and felt foreboding in her skin.

“Don’t,” she said, and frowned, as Guto continued to stare into his labyrinth of trouble.

“Don’t what?” Guto looked over the wall at the moving figure of Maria some more.

At the sink, Maria wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and was jolted to attention when she noticed Guto watching her through the window. This gave her someone. With unfamiliar confidence, Maria put on her smallest shorts, walked outside, removed the wet clothes from the washing tank, and hung the laundry on the line. Guto nearly stopped breathing and stared at the crescents of flesh that taunted him.

Intentionally, Maria dropped a clothespin and took longer than necessary to pick it up.

That night, Guto dreamt of Maria and squeezed a pillow between his legs. In his dream, her naked body was covered in clothespins that puckered and wrinkled her skin. Maria stared at Guto, removed them one-by-one, and waved him towards her with one enticing finger.

Guto awoke smiling.

More than anything, he wanted Maria.

The next day, Guto stood in the street aimlessly, hands in the pockets of his jeans, and waited for Arnaldo to leave the house and turn the corner. Guto’s classes only began at noon, as the elementary students used the same building in the mornings. When Arnaldo dropped from sight, Guto rushed to Maria’s gate and clapped three times; simultaneously brave and terrified.

Maria descended the steps. That day, she was beautiful with black, shiny hair, full hips, and still wearing the smallest of shorts. She was nothing like the skinny girls at Guto’s school, who would not be bribed with chocolate and bubble gum and only said, “No!”

Guto swallowed nervously and then found the courage to ask, “Do you need anything?”

Maria smiled.

She sent him to the bakery with five reais. Guto brought her six rolls and counted the change into her outstretched palm through the bars of the gate. Maria shook the coins in her hand like rattling dice.

“Can I help you…tomorrow?” Guto asked, and perspiration beaded on his forehead.

Maria nodded and turned to climb the steps. The back pockets on her shorts swayed slightly and Guto thought he might die.

The following day, Maria opened the gate for Guto and let him enter her home. She put him to work. He stood on a chair in the kitchen and changed a light bulb. Her children played on the floor beneath him. Maria watched him and smiled again. A pot on the stove hissed with the sound of steaming rice. She was already thinking about when and where.

After a week of this, now whenever Guto appeared at Maria’s, she tossed the key over the gate and he let himself in. That day, she had sent the children to play next door. For the first time they were alone.

“I need to tell you something,” Guto stammered.

“Don’t,” Maria said, and pressed her hand over his mouth to close it. At this moment, Guto knew nothing and Maria knew everything. She pulled him towards her and kissed him until he shuddered. Maria pushed him away abruptly, closed the curtains, removed her wedding ring, and placed it on the bureau. “You can’t tell anyone,” Maria said softly, as she pulled him towards her again, and their legs bumped together in an awkward, bedroom waltz. “You know what he’ll do to us?” her voice stammered over the chilling words. They sank into the pile of linen she had stripped from the bed.

Die if I do and die if I don’t, Guto thought. “I won’t,” he said, managing to complete their backwards vows. Engulfed by a nest of sheets and discarded clothes, they had each other. When it was over, and his breathing slowed, Guto swore he still knew nothing, even though he was gripped by an overwhelming sense of impending doom.

“Gustavo,” Maria said, using his given name. “Gostoso.” Delicious. Forgetting his fear, Guto treated Maria’s body gently like a new toy he had been given and pulled Maria closer to his chest, rested his ear over her heart, and listened.

“You’re beautiful,” Gustavo said, feelingly foolish even as he spoke the truth. “I think…” Maria’s mouth turned up into a smile, yet she shook her head, and her eyes pleaded him to stop talking.

After a few moments, Maria untangled herself from Guto’s arms, stood up, and discreetly slipped on her wedding ring, gathering up the linen to place it in the washing tank outside, to give it time to dry before Arnaldo arrived. She busied herself and would not look at Guto's eyes. He let himself out, and made sure the gate did not bang shut to noisily announce their deed to all who watched and listened.

At home, Guto’s mother, Aparecida eyed him suspiciously when he hustled to the stove for thirds, humming softly to himself.

“You have an appetite tonight,” Aparecida said.

Guto smiled and wiped his plate clean with the end of a roll. He knew he could say nothing, because he had promised.

Each tryst, Guto learned something new about Maria. Sometimes when they were together, she wore intricate garter belts covered in red and black lace that attached to sheer stockings with seams down the back. These were stolen pleasures. Maria pocketed and saved the extra change from her grocery allowance to buy these luxuries for Guto. When Guto left, she hid them away in the bureau, in an intricate system of bags which were rolled inside of discarded, shoe boxes, so that Arnaldo would never find them.

Other times she wore the silver platform sandals that she had worn to a Carnival party, long ago before the children came. She wore silky gloves that stretched to her elbows and were secured with raised buttons.

Once, Maria made Guto nearly climb the walls with desire and then served him a piece of cake, and then she stood in the doorway of the bedroom and danced as if she were on a stage. Guto stared at Maria in awe and shock, hungrily ate his dessert, and picked up the crumbs with one finger. Yet then, he nearly choked and shook violently when he thought momentarily of what Arnaldo would do to him if he found out.

When Guto was going home, Maria grabbed his white T-shirt and held it to her face.

“Leave this,” she said.

Aparecida glared at her son as he returned bare-chested through their gate.

“Getting some sun?” she asked.

“I’m working out,” Guto lied. He did a jumping jack and jogged in place.

Aparecida frowned and looked over the wall.

That night, as Arnaldo snored beside her in bed, Maria pulled the T-shirt from under her pillow and breathed in Guto’s scent. She whispered a secret that no one heard.

The next time Guto was there, Maria began to cry when they were through. She ran her fingers through his hair and hugged him to her chest. Guto had gotten over being first-time smitten, and was focused on what this was: a reprieve from spontaneous combustion. Guto scanned her face nervously to try to figure out what to do. He didn’t know, but Maria had fallen. To calm her the only way he knew how, Guto sang in phonetic English from the records he listened to in his room every day. The band was from England and had an impossible, double “th” in their name. This was unpronounceable for Guto who for years called them, “Da Smeets.”

Guto sang to Maria, “Please, Please…”

She shook her head at his foreign words. “That means nothing to me,” she said. In a sad and off-pitch voice, Maria sang a Roberto Carlos song in Portuguese. When she got to the lyrics about love, her voice lowered to a whisper and then she stopped completely. Guto felt an anxious jolt in his gut, rolled away quickly, and got dressed. Maria cried even harder.

That day, Aparecida was waiting for Guto at Maria’s gate.

Guto’s face was like a giant billboard. It was all written there for her to read.

“That’s enough,” Aparecida said, pulling him by the arm and slapping him sharply over one ear. “Leave her alone, before he finds out. It will only end badly and someone will get hurt.”

Guto abruptly ended their affair; he simply stopped going over to Maria’s and offered her no explanation. He hid in his room, wore headphones, and listened to his records at high volume until his ears buzzed.

Now, when Arnaldo left in the mornings, Maria kept a silent vigil, stood across the street, and stared at Guto’s house for hours.

Aparecida swept the stairs all the way down to their gate and pushed the dust and bits of paper onto the street. For Maria’s sake, Aparecida pretended she didn’t know and nodded at Maria warmly.

For a week, Maria stood outside every morning and stared up at Guto’s window. Her eyes pleaded for some sign of reconciliation. She stopped washing her hair and wore the same clothes. When Guto left for school, he kept his head down as he passed her, but secretly felt like he had pulled a rough-and-tumble school boy stunt and killed a beautiful sparrow with a homemade slingshot.

On a Saturday night while Arnaldo was on duty, Maria put on a bright red dress, which she pulled from the depths of her secret wardrobe, and slid into her silver platform sandals. She sprayed herself with rose water and put on shimmering lip gloss and covered her eye lids with smoky shadow.

Maria entered the corner bar, which could be seen from Guto’s window, sat at the counter and drank glass-after-glass of sweet, sugarcane rum with limes. The men in the bar winked and stealthily placed their bets, waiting for the spectacle to start. Arnaldo would be getting his horns tonight, they whispered with thick, alcohol-laden breath.

After five drinks, when she was good and drunk, Maria sloppily threw herself against each man in the bar and said, “Please, Please,” and they laughed and tossed her around like a Pimbolin ball. Maria ricocheted from arm to arm as if kicked by the flippers of the table-soccer game found in every local Brazilian bar.

Neighbors have a thousand eyes and one mouth. Someone hit the digits and called Arnaldo.

When Arnaldo showed up, he was pale with fury and slapped Maria to the floor, like he was knocking down a moth which had flown too close to the light. Maria screamed and crawled away from Arnaldo.

Guto watched all this from his window and helplessly clutched his stomach.

Arnaldo drew his gun and the bar’s frozen onlookers, reawakened by the call for self-preservation, jumped over chairs and tables, and spilled onto the street to get out of the way of any bullets. They all watched as Arnaldo pushed a hysterical, punching-and-clawing, Maria to their gate, finally pinning one arm behind her back like a criminal. The street filled with her desperate screams.

As Guto watched, the hair on the back of his neck stood up; he was paralyzed with fear and guilt.

Guto’s mother, Aparecida, hurriedly closed the wooden shutters over Guto’s bedroom window.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Family trouble. Nada.”

After that night, Maria rarely left her home. It was as if she disappeared into the walls.

Years later, when Guto was twenty-four, he brought his fiancée, Silvia, home to meet his mother, Aparecida, and gain her blessing for their impending marriage. Guto had been fortunate. Even though he attended public school, he passed the college entrance exam, was the first person in his neighborhood to earn a diploma, and now wrote code for a successful, software company.

Silvia was a rising-star, graphic designer, with a deliberate blue streak in her hair and tattoos on her arms. She had spent a semester in London and had stories that amazed Guto about hearing Morrissey sing live at a sold-out show. They were already living in the future and were saving to buy an apartment in a trendy, São Paulo neighborhood, where a new professional class was emerging.

As the young couple was leaving, Maria appeared at the gate. An old woman at only thirty-four; her sleek black hair was now washed out and gray. Like an inmate, she pressed her face against the bars of the gate and quietly called to them. Once they were close, she gently kissed Silvia on the cheek. Guto noticed her eyes were now deeply sunken with grief, and it pained him to remember his helplessness that night, such a long time ago.

“Congratulations,” Maria said softly to Silvia. “You’re a lucky girl.”

Maria forced a faint smile at Guto which was filled with the blinding sadness of what could never be. Maria looked at the ground and said slowly, “I hope you know, this boy is something.”