The Hour of the Star Read Online Free Page B

film star, it is a moment of glory for everyone, when the choral music scales the top notes.
    When she was tiny, the girl dearly longed to possess a pet animal. Her aunt, however, decided that an animal in the house would simply mean one more mouth to feed. The girl resigned herself, convinced that she was only fit for breeding fleas and that she didn't deserve a dog's affection. Her aunt's constant reproaches had taught her to keep her head lowered. The old girl's sanctimonious ways, however, had failed to influence her. Once her aunt was dead, the girl never again set foot inside a church. She had no religious feeling and the divinities made no impression.
    Life is like that: you press a button and life lights up. Except that the girl didn't know which button to press. She wasn't even aware that she lived in a technological society where she was a mere cog in the machine. One thing, however, did worry her: she no longer knew if she had ever had a father or mother. She had forgotten her origins. If she had thought hard, she might have concluded that she had sprouted from the soil of Alagoas inside a mushroom that soon rotted. She could speak, of course, but had little to say. No sooner do I succeed in persuading her to speak, than she slips through my fingers.
    Notwithstanding her aunt's death, the girl was certain that for her things would be different. She would never die. (It's my obsession to become the other man. In this case, the other woman. Pale and feeling weak, I tremble just like her.)
    The definable is making me a little weary. I prefer truths that carry no prophecies. When I eventually rid myself of this story, I shall withdraw to the more arbitrary realm of vague prophecies. I did not invent this girl. She forced her being upon me. She was by no means mentally retarded: she was as helpless and trusting as any fool. At least the girl didn't have to beg for food. (There were others who were even more abandoned and starving.) I alone love her.
    Then — who knows for what reason — she arrived in Rio, the incredible Rio de Janeiro, where her aunt had found her a job. Then her aunt had died, and the girl was on her own, lodging in a bedsitter with four other girls who worked as shop-assistants at a well-known department store.
    The bedsitter was in an old, colonial-style tenement in Acre Street, a red-light district near the docks inhabited by women who picked up seamen in the streets between the depots of charcoal and cement. Those polluted docks made the girl yearn for some future. (What's happening? It's as if I were listening to a lively tune being played on the piano — a sign perhaps that the girl will have a brilliant future? I am consoled by this possibility and will do everything in my power to make it come to pass.)
    Acre Street. What a slum. The plump rats of Acre Street. I keep well away from the place. To be frank, I am terrified of that dark hole and its depraved inhabitants.
    From time to time, the girl was lucky enough to hear a cockerel welcome the dawn. Then she would remember the backwoods of Alagoas with nostalgia. Where could there be room for a cockerel to crow in that warren of warehouses storing goods for export and import? (If the reader is financially secure and enjoys the comforts of life, he must step out of himself and see how others live. If he is poor, he will not be reading this story because what I have to say is superfluous for anyone who often feels the pangs of hunger. Here I am acting as a safety-valve for you and the tedious bourgeoisie. I know that it is very frightening to step out of oneself, but then everything which is unfamiliar can be frightening. The anonymous girl of this story is so ancient that she could be described as biblical. She was subterranean and had never really flowered. I am telling a lie: she was wild grass.)
    Throughout the torrid summers, the oppressive heat of Acre Street made her sweat, a sweat that gave off an appalling stench. A sweat, I couldn't