Hiiii! Good morning, good morning, good morning, good morning!

Great, great, and yours?

Yes, I went. I couldn’t not, could I. Or my mother would have disowned me. My family, my mother, she loves Christmas. I told you, didn’t I: every year, in November, she throws away all the decorations and buys new ones. Glass baubles, miniature Father Christmases, styrofoam snow. All new. To renew life. Throw everything away, buy it all again.

I don’t much like this woman. Her voice is nasally and shrill, but when she laughs the air comes out in a cough, all through her mouth. A happy bray. She’s going to tell me she travelled to Mato Grosso, where her mother lives. My mother and father. And the whole gang of cousins! (Laughs) Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, a ranch satellite town. Cattle and soy, cattle and soy. She’s going to tell me what the journey was like: she forgot her headphones. She had to travel in silence for nine hours, the bus left Belo Horizonte in the afternoon and got to Mato Grosso at night. On Christmas Eve itself. Not even a radio, imagine, not even a little radio! She’ll try to describe the scenery, that green, brown, dull gold sameness. The electricity poles marking the speed of the bus; the wires going dooown, the wires going uuup, up and down, up and down. Further back, the grasslands going by slowly, and even further back, the hills going by even more slowly. When night fell the road went into the mountains and she saw the moon and the stars twirling: bend to the left, bend to the right. She’ll try and explain: the whole scene moving at different speeds and in different directions, like a puppet show. This comparison will sprout from the sludge in her head, it wants to float up to the light, but it’s no use. The jolts in perspective have left her confused.

Daddy picked her up from the bus station.

Who was at the house? Were they all there already?

‘Me, your mother, grandpa, Auntie Sá, your cousin and her boyfriend . . .’

How am I meant to know which cousin? It was cousin Marô, with her boyfriend, who she’d brought to meet the family. So it’s getting serious. Next there’ll be a wedding, which this woman calls ‘getting hitched’ because she’s just back from the sticks.

‘Serious, oh yes.’

What was he like?

‘He doesn’t like music.’

What?

‘Says he doesn’t like it. It disturbs him.’

Daddy drove, giving her a smile every now and again, neither of them talking. As soon as they went through the gates, he took a deep breath and said:

‘There’ll be an empty seat at the table.’

In previous years, there’d been no end of family. They’d had to improvise, more tables, deckchairs, benches, mummy sitting on a pouffe, joyfulness unbridled.

It seemed the cousin had changed too.

‘You know your cousin likes to read, don’t you. So your mother started telling her she was reading a book about that guy who invented the iPod. You know what your cousin said? That nobody reads that kind of book, a book about the guy who invented the iPod, she’d never be capable of inventing the iPod. That she’d thrown her money away. That a book like that was just to take money from people like her. Not that your mother is going to invent the iPod, but . . .’

snow is chic

The dogs of the house greeted her. Two Fila Brasileiros, muscular, half-feral. Not those little dogs rich women have, with bows and no fleas, no ticks. These dogs had cayenne ticks, horse ticks! They’d get them out in the scrub. Rodolfo and Maguila, their names were. After that, the whole family: yay. I love my family. (Don’t I.)

The boyfriend was the last in the queue for hugs. A big guy with a fat neck, a goatee and a gormless smile. The strong fat type – you know the strong fat type? – and pretty ugly. The cousin, she was no beauty, one of those teachers who think they don’t need to make more than three thousand reais a month, one of those women who think they don’t need to shave their armpits, but shave them anyway. The cousin, she’d do better for herself if she learned a few make up tips and went out dancing and was more persistent and prayed to Saint Anthony. You can get tutorials for anything on the internet. A kiss on the cheek: hi, pleased to meet you, and the boyfriend said his name. She said hers. Pleased to meet you.

Mummy! They hug again.

Christmas dinner is already on the table, awaiting her arrival.

On the stereo, Sinatra singing jingle bells.

The father always sits at the head of the table, with the mother on his right and the daughter on his left. Beside the daughter, cousin Marô. Opposite the cousin, an empty chair, though the place is set with a plate and cutlery. Beside the empty place, the boyfriend. Why didn’t he sit in front of his girlfriend? I don’t know, I don’t care. Opposite him, Auntie Sá. At the other end of the table, the patriarch, the father’s father, grandpa, staring with curiosity and rage at the new intruder, a hunk of flesh twice his size and a quarter of his age.

The plates and cups and saucers are Chinese, from when China still sold expensive things. The cutlery actual silver. On the glass serving dishes: roast turkey; a Chester super-chicken in apricot sauce; ham glazed with honey, pineapple and cloves; cod with boiled potatoes and red, green and yellow peppers. Bowls of: caramelized fruit; dried fruit; rice with raisins; banana farofa. Full-fat desserts: crème caramel; panettone; dulce de leche; cheese and guava; coconut brittle and Grace Kelly cakes, a family tradition.

This year’s decorations: a Christmas tree with white plastic foliage, even whiter plastic imitation snow on top. Gold glitter. Gold glass baubles hanging from the branches. A Star of David, gold, fixed to the top of the tree. Gold ornaments stuck on the walls, Father Christmases in white and gold woolly hats, white reindeer, the words have a merry snowy christmas! in English. The temperature: 36°C.

‘Snow is chic,’ says the mother.

The boyfriend gives a low, mocking cough.

mother: I change the decorations every year.

The boyfriend smiles, doesn’t answer. She’s not his mother-in-law, he doesn’t have to answer.

grandpa: (loudly) She changes them every year.

The boyfriend smiles at the old man. Silence.

Everybody starts talking at the same time. Their voices swell and soften. Silence. Daddy starts cutting the ham. Grandpa sticks his fork in the turkey. Is there no pork shoulder? Auntie Sá asks about boyfriends. Every auntie asks the same thing, don’t they. (Laughs). Someone asks for the rice to be passed. Ah . . . boyfriends, nothing, or almost nothing. A few wimps, boys, no assertiveness; all poodle. A woman wants a Fila Brasileiro, a Labrador. Not one of those pit bull types from the gym, mind you, none of that. Nor a Rottweiler, not that either. A brute, pero no mucho.

Every day on her way home from work, she passes a jiu-jitsu gym (DODÔ FIGHT). From the street, she sees the tough guys grappling on the floor – men, those stocky women and, sometimes, a scared-looking fat kid (dad’s idea, put the boy in a fight). From the street, she smells sweat mixed with tatami, the reek of man and rubber that she adores, that frightens her, that gives her goosebumps, a man like that turns me to jelly. And if you could have the smell without the man, how good would that be! There’s no prince charming without the smell of tatami.

grandpa: (Loudly) Did you bring a present?

father: He doesn’t need to bring a present.

grandpa: (Loudly) It would be polite.

auntie sá: He can join our Secret Santa.

The boyfriend says nothing.

cousin marô: He’s going to play charades.

mother: Nobody needs to bring a present. Pass the turkey?

cuiabá is not chic

mother: Doesn’t he remind you of someone?

auntie sá: He does, doesn’t he?

father: Of who?

(The father realises who. His face goes as red as a pepper.)

auntie sá: He really does . . .

father: I’m going to the bathroom. Excuse me.

mother: Napkin. Wipe your mouth.

He wipes his mouth. Visibly upset. And exits. White cloth napkin with gold hems, brand new, thirty-five reais each.

mother: (To the boyfriend) Do you like the decorations?

daughter: (Jokey voice) She changes them every year.

Nobody laughs.

The boy nods.

auntie sá: There really is a resemblance. What’s your father’s name?

The boy answers.

The mother and the aunt whisper.

grandpa: (Loudly) What?

auntie sá: He isn’t from Cuiabá.

mother: Where are you from?

auntie sá: Pass the turkey?

The boyfriend doesn’t say where he’s from.

auntie sá: Do you remember?

mother: The past is past. Over and done. Pass the cod.

grandpa: (Loudly) Is there no pork shoulder?

Everyone falls silent, passing plates and serving dishes to one another, until the father comes back from the bathroom. He sits and wipes his mouth with the napkin, slowly, almost voluptuously. A clean mouth is a very pleasant thing. Daddy is clean, daddy never did anyone any harm. Faithful to God.

father: Zaga cut his leg. Looked deep.

mother: (Explaining to the audience) Zaga is the caretaker.

grandpa: (Loudly) He knows how to turn his eyelids inside out so you only see the fleshy side. Like an animal. His wife has hepatitis. Hepatitis A or B.

father: Or C.

grandpa: (Loudly) What?

boyfriend: Hepatitis est omnis divisa in partes tres.

An astonished silence followed his words. It must have been funny.

grandpa: (Loudly) What?

The boyfriend smiles, but doesn’t answer. He doesn’t repeat or explain the joke. Not even cousin Marô understood what he was trying to say.

grandpa: (Loudly) Son, who did you vote for president?

father: You don’t have to answer.

mother: I really like this year’s decorations. I chose them. Don’t you like them? It’s a shame to throw them all away afterwards. But we have to renew.

The boy doesn’t answer. He gives an odd smile.

Then, you won’t believe what happened. He sniffed the air like a dog and got up from the table, my cousin’s boyfriend. He looked like he was possessed. Everyone stood up, as though overcome by a profound solemnity. Then he turned his back and walked towards the stairs. Everyone followed, including me, even now I can’t say why. It was like a funeral procession. Then they realised there was no music playing. Not a single jingle bell. The sound of footsteps going after the boy. Stairs. Someone helped Grandpa climb them. The boy went towards a room that nobody ever opened. It was like he already knew. When mummy realised where we were going, she stood still, watching. Watching her family leave. Her daughter beckoned her to follow, even though she didn’t know where she was going. The mother remained impassive, panic-struck.

The boy turned the handle, but the door was locked. Everyone looked at my mother, didn’t they, she has all the keys to the house. But the mother didn’t react at all. Everything was about to fall apart. Then the boy kicked the door once, twice. The lock held. So then my father, my father seemed hypnotised, he went over and broke down the door with one shove of his shoulder. Inside, there were dozens of cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other.

You’ll never believe what was in the boxes.

The decorations from all the Christmases before.

Image © Laura Thorne