a hand than a cigarette. And you never exhale downward; always send the smoke up, above the heads of your fellow actors. Of course, that is, if you have fellow actors. The only nice thing about being alone onstage is that you can send the smoke anywhere you want. Yet I always send it up, out of habit, I suppose.
She paused for a moment and tapped some ash off her cigarette into the pocket of her bearskin coat.
Don’t look at me, she said. Look out the window.
Why? asked the man.
Because I can’t say this next bit if you’re looking at me.
The man turned away and looked out the window. The fields stretched all the way to the horizon, where they blurred into the gray sky.
He heard Livia Pinheiro-Rima say: Acting with someone is very intimate, you know. It isn’t so very different from sleeping with someone. In a way it’s more intimate, because it’s easy to fake intimacy in bed, but if you act well, if you do it right, you’re raw, you’re completely vulnerable, it’s like you’re porous, your body ceases to have boundaries. Your mind too, and your heart. She paused for a moment and then said, I’ve felt that with you, some of these moments.
She paused, but he said nothing, so she continued: When I was young, she said, when I was just beginning—my circus days, I suppose—and even after that, when I was a not very young, for most of my life, in fact, I have wanted to make love with just about everyone I met. I mean, not everyone of course, but with so very many. Men and women. In some way it seemed a crime to me to be alive, to be on this earth, and not make love to everyone. It wasn’t nymphomania. No. It was that I could see too clearly, too devastatingly, the thing, things, about people that were hurt and therefore loveable, the beautiful sacred space in them that needed touching. And once you’ve seen that in someone, it’s difficult not to love him. Or her. At least it was for me.
She paused for a moment, but still he said nothing, and so she continued: You see, I’m afraid of going dead inside. Of course I can’t make love with you, I know that, I mean intellectually I do, but there’s something wrong with me. This should count. This should be valid enough.
What? the man asked.
This, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Just sitting here together in this car. It should matter. It should count.
And it doesn’t? asked the man.
Perhaps it does. That’s the joke of my life: that it all does matter, all these quiet moments, this moment, but we just want to get fucked and applauded, so we think that’s what matters, what counts, and in the end we realize it’s just the opposite.
She was silent for a moment and the man was about to turn away from the window when he heard her speak again.
It’s important for me that you know that, she said. That you know how I feel about you.
He turned then and looked at her. She sat very erect, facing forward, staring through the front windshield. The man saw for the first time her frailty. It seemed to him that it was only her clothes, the girth and weight of her monstrous fur coat, that contained and protected her.
He reached out and touched the arm of her coat, and then leaned forward and kissed her on her cheek. Thank you for doing this, he said. Thank you for coming with me to get the baby.
They entered the lobby of the orphanage to find that it was empty and unattended. We must push this button to summon someone, the man said. Otherwise we may languish here forever.
Then by all means push it, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. Push it with all your might!
The man pushed the button and they heard its shrill clang momentarily alarm the entire building.
Well done, said Livia Pinheiro-Rima. I’m sure we will be attended to momentarily. Meanwhile, I will sit upon this monstrosity and reacclimate myself. One is perpetually shedding or donning garments in this country. It’s fatiguing.
The man had removed his parka immediately upon entering the anteroom and laid it upon one of the pews that flanked the entryway, for he felt it seriously compromised the effect of his grandfather’s suit. If he had brought a topcoat, he might have left it on, for it was cold in the anteroom, but he had not—he had