To me, Lia was a mystery with no definite scent, with multiple, shifting perfumes. I remember that, the first time she came near, she was citrus. Her voice filling the room in an orgasm of laughter. Exuberant, she sculpted intonations: a smooth “good morning” for everyone, a soft “my sweetie” for old Bebel, a shameless “looking hot today” for Paulo, and an anorexic silence before me.
It was a silence full of citrus scent. The silence of someone who suddenly halts a parade of quick steps. A ballerina voice with movement amnesia: now wishing to retreat, now seeming to move forward, sending my hairs into spasms, stopping in front of me.
– My God, who is this man?
– I don’t see any man around here – I said, with the playfulness of good-humoured blind men. – “Or woman.”
She then took my wrist, warm, as if she were slipping into my trousers.
– No? – she said, in a voice sweetened like champagne. I froze my body so as not to show my lack of… Cornered.
– I’m Lia. Has anyone told you bad things about me yet?
It was embarrassing. I heard her voice say one thing and her skin another. It was a silken movement that burned like a scream.
– I’m Guilherme. Uh, my name is Guilherme.
Bebel’s voice sounded from afar.
– Lia, the boy is blushing red, and that’s because he can’t even see you.
Red, to me, was a synonym for summer, burning and a racing pulse.
– People will think I dress like a whore.
– Oh, Lia, it’s nothing like that – said Bebel, unconcerned.
To me, it was music with a breeze on warm skin.
[“Synergy – Part 1”, Glaucio Aranha, 2016]
Translated from the Brazilian Portuguese; reviewed by the author.
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