Determinism can be religious, but I am not!
The research I was doing concerned the most illustrious people around me, whether Dona Efigénia would have her children nearby to help her with her sprain, since she couldn't get out of that resting position for more than fifteen days, whether the doorman who greeted us at the entrance to what would become our future was in good spirits after having lost his wife in such a stupid way, whether her mother, who I knew well, was healthy, whether Amália and Cândida would return safely from the weekend or vacation to go back to school at the boarding school where I was staying, whether the uproar in the rooms upstairs would continue like this, preventing me from concentrating on my books and notes. I've always been very down to earth. Or, I should say down to earth. And if a problem arose that would hang over my friends' faces, leaving them distant and sleepless, I advised them: Throw it up to the ceiling, as if to say, don't worry, everything will be resolved in due time. But, honestly, I didn't believe in due times, except in the actions we took to resolve, whatever the issue was! I was from the air, I couldn't afford to be too sentimental, that didn't fill my stomach. To avoid friction, I tried to always be mental. Because, instead of the history of times and the geography of spaces, I preferred to devote my energy to digressions that revolved around preventing anyone from hurting me again. That the earth was comfort and I had a roof over my head and a bed with warm blankets. My classmates filled the air with their sighs and din, typical of the youth that ran through our veins. Zita was bold, exuberant and always in a good mood. She, Sameiro, a real court jester, half tomboy, who climbed the pine trees instead of accompanying us to the dances, Margarida, Elisa, all together, above my room, they would put the country together and take it apart in half an hour, from the Magalas, the dictatorship, the movement of pedestrians on weekends along the Douro River, the festival of Our Lady of the Oaks, the games of singles against married people, the boys from the Esmaltal factory. Anyway, I laughed with them, but when I needed silence, that was when I needed it most. I went hungry, because I didn't have any family members to go to spend the weekend or holidays. The food at the hospital, where we practiced our nursing exercises, was terrible. There was Eduardo, a patient who went around the tables in the staff cafeteria, collecting the bread and pieces of fruit that my colleagues didn't eat and gave us interns some of those pieces that, I must confess, filled my stomach on some evenings, during the time I was an intern. Three long years, almost four, and by the fourth I was already earning my own salary, for the service I performed. I must admit, however, that being an orphan and poor was a stain that stuck to my glottis and that I didn't want to dedicate myself to. I never gave up. When exams were approaching, while they nervously ran to their books and notes, exchanged ideas and argued, I would pick up the wooden egg and sew socks. That was how I relaxed. The nurse who was in charge of the boarding school didn't cross paths with me. I don't think she even crossed paths with herself. Her name was Luísa and she was one of those pieces that should be in a museum and, underneath her, there should have been a label that said: DO NOT TOUCH, UNDER THE RISK OF ELECTROCUTION!
When she was "ruling the home", she was still single, although older than us, and we couldn't even peek through the windows of the common room through the long, transparent curtains, when she was in a bad mood, which was almost always. All and any visits to our rooms were forbidden, so we were forbidden from receiving visits from family and friends within the space where we lived. Only she could break the rules. Her boyfriend would sneak in and we would see him sneak out through the back door. One day, close to the Sanjoaninas festivities, where we had arranged to go as a group to celebrate our youth and the promise of another end of the school year, at the boarding school, the head of the house had a fit of rage. And shouting, I was nearby, in the small room that opened onto the kitchen, she asked who had left lemon peels on the kitchen counter. There were half a dozen of us there, but since no one answered, I replied: - Not me, nurse, I hate tea. And I said it calmly and thoughtfully, without any malicious intent. I had never liked tea. And she, in front of the other colleagues, believed that there was cynicism or some other intention and answered me, with foam at the corners of her lips, furious:- Girl, I'm not giving you any tea! I just want to know who left the peels on the counter, because I can't stand dirt or slovenliness. You're being punished and you're not going anywhere! And I opened my mouth again, this time I was also furious, but trying to control my fury at her wanting to ban me from going to the San Juan festivities, because she's obsessive and doesn't like me, maybe because I'm poor, or because I'm an orphan and there's no one who could defend me, or maybe because she believes I don't like her: Nurse Luísa, when I said I don't like tea, I wasn't saying that you were giving me tea, but rather that I've never liked tea and therefore I never pick lemons from the garden for myself because I don't like drinking tea. And I don't mind throwing away the lemon peels, but it would be good if it was clear that it wasn't me and that the punishment you're giving me is not fair! Outraged, I went to my room. Edite was the maid who was always buttering up the boss, pretending to clean the floor, because the students themselves were the ones who cleaned our rooms. That weekend, I was punished twice as much as the other boarders, who were not allowed to leave the school, because, in addition to not being able to leave the school, they had also locked my bathroom, which was only for the students, and those of us who lived there had to jump out of the window and try to get in through the window of the aforementioned bathroom, and I stayed locked in there for a whole night, unable to get out until the next day. The parents and other relatives of my classmates came to bring them back, but they never got past the small hall in the entrance. They were carrying bags and smiling. Which they shared with me. Especially Amélia. Ham and moiras, bread from Chaves and Bragança, fruit, I can't complain about that. I had a sister in a town a few miles away from the boarding school, but I didn't really like going there, because I had to work and take care of the children, just like all my brothers had done for me, right after my mother left when I was ten years old. In order for me to leave the boarding school, all I had to do was write a letter to the head of the department, nurse Luísa, and then I would be allowed to leave. When I discovered that my classmates did this to each other, I started doing the same thing. I tried to get the same classmate to leave, with her handwriting disguised, pretending to be my sister or aunt. And it worked, I was allowed to have my own life away from the confines of the boarding school. And that was when I fell in love for the first time, which is to say, I got excited to get to know the opposite sex and the ins and outs of romance better. António Pinto e Silva. He had the looks for my needs. He wasn't handsome, but he was friendly and well-spoken. He didn't smile much, but when he was with me, he smiled a lot. And he talked about the future. He said to me: You know, Eduarda, while the girl is stuck studying to have a noble future, of use to others, I'm here thinking that I don't even feel like going to Gaia on the weekends anymore, I just feel like staying here, watching her go by. But my job at the bank requires me to work overtime. What do you say to us meeting at São Bento next Saturday at two in the afternoon and catching the train to Espinho and going to see the sea?
That got me thinking. On Wednesday, I found a way to stop by the café with a colleague and leave a written message for António. It was a deal. I would meet him and other people who would accompany my colleagues on this trip. I wouldn't go alone, with a stranger. But I didn't write that on the note. On Saturday, there we were, Cândida, Amália, Amélia and Ernestina. We waited until half past two. António didn't show up, but their friends did. And although I was disappointed, I didn't let myself get discouraged. I've always been like that, I'd throw up my hands before things got too sad. We had fun and went to the Carvalhos festival. When we got back, we passed by the river and the worst happened. My sky blue suit and skirt, a beautiful color, turned green with moss and muddy water. I fell into the river, with my little bag that contained twenty escudos, a handkerchief and a small box of rice powder that my older sister had given me for my birthday when I had lived with her in Caulinos. The bag was open, the twenty escudo note was floating, a boat was adrift, and I was worried that I was going to drown. They rescued me and my belongings and it was seven thirty in the evening when we arrived on the trolley, wet and dirty, but in one piece. When I returned to the café on Monday, after lunch, Mr. Andrade told me that he had left a note on Wednesday saying that he would only be able to come on Sunday, as his sister had been admitted to Santo António and he had gone to accompany his mother to visit her sister. And that was how I quickly stopped bothering him, I never paid him any more attention and I never agreed to talk to him again. I determined that this human being would not make me deviate from my plans for the future.
I met another boy, who charmed me and if I said I didn't fall in love, I would be lying. I really liked him. And he would come to talk to me every day at the hospital entrance. Everyone could see it and they even whispered in the hospital corridors that Eduarda was going to get caught this time. But I still didn't stop throwing my addictions at the ceiling. It was later.
One day, it was already consensual, we were dating, and I said goodbye to him to go back to the hospital and three ladies who were seamstresses from the hospital where I was taking the course passed by and asked me: Are you dating that gentleman? What gentleman? I answered stiffly, with another question. And they said: Mr. Alberto? Because if you are, look, he is married and has a son. That got on my nerves. I didn't even answer them anymore. I ran to the boarding school, on the other side of the street, rushed into my room and cried. I spoke to a close friend later, who decided to accompany me in the investigation. And there I went, knocking on the door, with Rosita, to ask if Alberto lived there and if he was married and had a son. The girl who answered the door was beautiful, tall and strong. I knew her by sight from there, from that street, and they told me later, much later, that she had been a seamstress at the hospital, like her colleagues, but had been fired because she had become pregnant. I apologized for knocking on her door and that we were friends with a colleague who was dating Alberto. If she was married to him and if he had a child, so we could tell our colleague. The lady replied with an embarrassed smile: Actually, I'm not married, because he didn't want to marry me, but the child exists, do you want to see? And we said yes. Rosita smiled at me as she went into the house to get the baby. I was shaking from head to toe. She said to me: Calm down, he's not married! And we can say whatever we want. The child might not even be his. There's a lot of slander! Calm down!
The lady, who I later learned was called Elsa, was carrying a baby in her arms who was almost a year and a half old, beautiful as the sun, with blond hair and blue eyes, just like his father Alberto, and I had no more doubts.
I went back to see him and told him that I felt deceived, that he had a son and was married, and although he had passed the test, because he had not lied to me he had not passed the scrutiny of my determinism, but he answered me literally: - And what good was it to tell you that I was not married, but that the girl had my son!? That is my sin. I told him that I did not want any child, that it had been a mistake of mine and we never had anything again, Eduarda. You must believe what I say. His attitude showed me that when faced with the facts, he did not run away from the evidence, but rather let us guess the setbacks he was suffering. And the attitude of not assuming the consequences of his actions caused the fracture. Things ended there. For us! For me, it cost me many sleepless nights, pain and longing. He wrote a letter to my sister's house, which she said would make the stones in the street cry when she read it. For me, that letter no longer made me cry anymore, I had cried everything. We ended up becoming friends. And even now, more than fifty years later, he always calls me on my birthday and Christmas and even added me on Facebook. But I hadn't finished the course yet, and my monitor called me to tell me that the teacher had punished me for a season, because I had "spoken" at the hospital door, without checking the consequences of my actions, with a man who had gotten the seamstress pregnant. I was only able to throw it to the ceiling much later, when the sun and salt had gone around the world, later.
A certain flirtatious individual, along with other boys we went out with, was trying to throw mud at the wall, when one of the boys he seemed to get along with very well, said to me: You're not going out with him. I know he invited you, but you're not going and I'll tell you why. He got divorced, he just wants a good life and a girl like you, he's going to make you his toy! I looked at him seriously and told him that I didn't even intend to give him any attention, I didn't even think he was worthy of my interest, but what did he care? This boy I went out with a lot and fell in love with, had a flaw, in my opinion. He was younger than me. I only found out much later. I always told him: Paco, I don't intend to get married before I'm twenty-five. I met him when I was twenty-three and that same year, I found out that he was younger and that he was going to be my husband.
One day he invited me to go on a picnic with his family who lived on Cunha Street. And I had heard of them before. My tutor was the family's neighbor. The doorman's wife was his foster sister. That day, I left determinism aside, in the hands of others or fate, however you want to see it. And so I accepted the invitation. He picked me up at the door of the boarding school and we went to Cunha Street. He took me into his parents' house, which was huge, almost the size of the boarding school, full of rooms and divisions, like a boarding house, with a beautiful garden in the backyard and, when I asked him where the family was, he said: do you want to see that they left without us? He hugged me and convinced me that only the two of us existed and that it had been God who had written that Saturday. A few months later, he asked me for my identity card so he could go and arrange the wedding. I gave it to him and asked him to see his. That was when I found out he was born in 1945, one year younger than me. I was angry, with myself, with him, but not with God. I had left everything in the hands of fate. I was already three months pregnant and I told him not to see me again. And that I would not look for him. He was insistent. That same year, in December, I got married and, together with him, I was already covering the expenses inherent to starting a family.
I have lived much longer, and I still do not believe in religion! I have learned many things and many others that I insisted on not wanting to learn. At my own expense, I learned that a lie, told a thousand times, even becomes the truth, imagine. I also learned that, no matter how much you do for others, you will never be recognized as such. That the worst human misery is not the lack of bread, but of ideals and ethics, that the greatest compliment we can receive is the truth of each one, and that Carnival should only be understood in the light of the absence of masks like April 1st, that jokes only disguise lies, but that they do not even stay on the ceiling, due to the force of gravity. My family has always seen me as an outsider, for not agreeing with their belief in the Catholic Church, but my religion remains the same, my will and my actions define me and the choices I have made. I belong to myself, until the aforementioned person comes and defeats me through exhaustion. They say that old donkeys don't learn languages, but I say yes, they do. The thing is, we can change our work, our desires and our lives. But there is one language that I have never met before, the language of death and transcendence. And I still wait, dazzled by the world and the determinism of others, by politics and the current unrest, where there are so many of us and we want so much and we never find ourselves, neither satisfied with life nor resigned to the end. And I have decided that I will throw this determinism that I cannot control to the ceiling, as I have always done with all the dilemmas that life has brought me. Without any religiosity.
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