The Hour of the Star Read Online Free Page A

had a special name for this condition — it was commonly believed to be caused by the liver. The girl concealed her blotches with a thick layer of white powder which gave the impression that she had been whitewashed but it was preferable to looking sallow. Her general appearance was grimy for she rarely washed. During the day she wore a blouse and skirt, at night she slept in her underwear. Her room-mates didn't have the courage to tell her about her stale body odour. And since she herself seemed to be oblivious of the fact, they were afraid of hurting her feelings. There was nothing irridescent about her, although the parts of her skin unaffected by the blotches had the subtle glow of opals. Not that it mattered. No one paid any attention to her on the street, for she was as appetizing as cold coffee.
    And so her days passed. The girl blew her nose on the hem of her petticoat. She lacked that elusive quality known as charm. I am the only person who finds her charming. As the author, I alone love her. I suffer on her account. And I alone may say to her: 'What do you ask of me weeping, that I would not give you singing?' The girl did not know that she existed, just as a dog doesn't know that it's a dog. Therefore she wasn't aware of her own unhappiness. The only thing she desired was to live. She could not explain, for she didn't probe her situation. Perhaps she felt there was some glory in living. She thought that a person was obliged to be happy. So she was happy. Before being born was she an idea? Before being born was she dead? And after being born was she about to die? What a thin slice of water melon.
    There are few facts to relate and I am still not sure how this story will develop.
    Now (bang) with a few rapid strokes I shall delineate the girl's previous history up to the moment when she stood before the mirror in the lavatory.
    She was hopelessly rachitic at birth, the inheritance of the backwoods — the legacy of misfortune I mentioned earlier.
    When she was two years old, her parents died of typhoid fever in the backwoods of Alagoas, in that region where the devil is said to have lost his boots. Much later she went to live in Maceió with her maiden aunt, a sanctimonious spinster, and the girl's only surviving relative in the whole wide world. On occasion the girl would recall some incident from her time there. For instance, her aunt rapping her on the head because the old woman believed that the crown of the head was the vital part of one's body. Her aunt would use her knuckles to rap that head of skin and bones which suffered from a calcium deficiency. She would thrash the girl not only because she derived some sensuous pleasure from thrashing her — the old girl found the idea of sexual intercourse so disgusting that she had never married — but also because she considered it her duty to see that the girl did not finish up like many another girl in Maceió standing on street corners with a lit cigarette waiting to pick up a man. So far the girl had shown no signs of becoming a prostitute one day. Even puberty seemed alien to her destiny. Puberty was slow in coming but even among weeds there exists a need for sunlight. The girl soon forgot those thrashings. If you wait patiently, the pain soon passes. But what pained her more was to be denied her favourite dessert: guava preserve with cheese, the only real passion in her life. Her sly old aunt enjoyed punishing her in this way. The girl didn't dare ask why she was always being punished. One doesn't have to know everything and not knowing became an important factor in her life.
    Not knowing sounds awful, but it was not so awful for the girl knew lots of things just as a dog knows how to wag its tail or a beggar how to feel hungry: things happen and you suddenly know. No one would teach her how to die one day: yet one day she would surely die as if she had already learned by heart how to play the starring role. For at the hour of death you become a celebrated