A LITTLE OF BRAZIL

A LITTLE OF BRAZIL


"- Yes, I have two, a boy and a girl. The boy lives with my sister in Maricá. It doesn´t make any difference to my sister, for she has two children - if she has to look after two, why not three...?" She pulls her long hair backwards. Her hair is almost red, gleamy and abundant, preserved from the sun and the sea water - she never goes to the beach. "The girl lives with me. I pay a woman to take care of her while I go out. I got to work ..."

"The boy is big now, he doesn´t give my sister too much trouble, he can take care of himself. Look, that guy is staring at me. I´m going to smile at him; men always prefer women who smile. He´s not bad at all, he must be German or something like that. Maybe he´ll start by paying our check."

"Me? I live near here, on Barata Ribeiro, but I´m not staying there too long. Oh, no, not me - I want to have my own place, my dear. I can´t stand living with other people : at the beginning it´s ok, everything is fine, but after some time ..."

"My little girl is just like her father, who happens to be a big ugly German. But he´s nice. He´s crazy about her, believe me, I never saw anything like that. Look, this is a letter he sent me. He didn´t write it himself, cause he doesn´t know a word in Portuguese. He asks somebody else to write for him."

"Do you know Katia? A tall, blonde girl ...I can´t understand why, she always gets more money from the guys. Remember Jim? Of course you remember Jim, everybody was after him last summer. Well, he gave her one thousand reais! The most I got from him one day was three hundred, and that was because he was drunk, my dear, because when he´s sober it´s just a hundred note and no more. And I still have to wait until 10 o´clock in the morning when he wakes up ..."'

"The guy smiled at me now! I think I´m going to invite him for a drink. With elegance, of course. I´m usually very lucky with Germans. My girl´s father is coming to Rio next month. He´s crazy about the girl. I think it´s because she looks like him - the same big round face with those big blue eyes ... The only problem is he´s going to stay a whole month and I can´t work during this time. Of course he doesn´t know I still work the night."

"A hundred per week, that´s how much I have to pay the woman who looks after the girl. It´s not so easy. My money simply has to provide for everything. I have to make money. Last week I was down, with no money at all, the woman was complaining because I had no money for her ... She just can´t understand that you can´t be lucky all the time, and then you have to wait ... you know what happened? I met an old client who gave me five hundred, just like that, as a Christmas gift. God, I paid the damn woman and then I could finally breathe ... Yeah, you better believe it."

This week looks like it´s going to be cool. Summer is here, Christmas is over ...I would like to get a haircut. No, I´m not going to have it cut short - on the contrary, just to change it a little bit. My daughter has funny hair, so strange, but I think that in time it will get better. Many people ask me if her father is a foreigner. Yeah, I tell them, her dad is German ..."

I had the hell of a time when I was pregnant, but I didn´t stay at home all the time. I used to go to the disco with the other girls, just to see people and listen to the music. How could I stay at home thinking about problems? You can always get lucky and find someone who´ll buy you dinner or something like that. There was an American, one day, who spent a long time caressing my belly, and do you know how much he gave me? Three hundred dollars!"

"I think I´m going to have something to eat; I can´t go on just drinking beer. What am I going to eat? Look, the son of a bitch of a German is asking for the check. There are three others just arriving. The heavy one looks friendlier ..."

"Do you know a good fortune teller? One who works with cards or something? I´ve been thinking of taking a good look into my future. I used to know a wonderful one, but I think she died - well, she was a very old woman, the poor thing! Her time came. I believe that everybody has their own time ..."

"I´m not going to eat here. I think this place is not "the" place today. Say, wouldn´t you like to go somewhere else? Then we can share a pizza ... Last week I met a guy, you won´t believe me, I didn´t think much of him in the beginning, he being a Brazilian, but it was very nice ...When you gotta get lucky it just happens ..."

"Are you going to stay? Well, it´s up to you. I´m going for a walk. We gotta keep moving ..."

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