Deisy: A Relationship One Word At A Time

Deisy was holding my hand as we walked along the main street, speaking very fast in a language I did not understand. She would say something, her mouth moving like in a silent movie. Without the intertitles, I was left to the sound of her voice that felt to me like the trill of the most fascinating creature. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, almost as tall as me, wearing Daisy Dukes and a white tank top that made her look like she came out of a movie set, the blonde bombshell of the film, out for a stroll with the not-famous, slightly overweight boyfriend. It was high noon, and looking at the sun playing on her hair was like trying to look through a blurry kaleidoscope, strenuous but satisfying.

Piçarras is a small town in the south of Brazil, a small dot on a map, surrounded by the green of infinite forest and the blue of the ocean to the east; the abundant vegetation invading every forgotten corner, any unattended crevice, in the permanent struggle between nature and civilization.
In this town, everybody knows everybody. As we walked along the main street, I could feel the eyes of the locals piercing the back of my head like small daggers poisoned with envy and jealousy.
I had only one thought in my head, "I’m gonna have to learn her language if I wanna keep her with me."

I arrived at the house looking for my cousins, to find it empty. It was the typical rental in a beach town, cheap construction intended to hold your stuff for a short stay. My cousins were gone, looking for a new adventure who knows where, and as unsettling as this was, I couldn’t say I was surprised.
Sitting on the doorstep was a young boy reading comic books. Eduardo was about twelve years old, thin and tall, with long, straight hair like wheat spikes ready to harvest. His eyes moved rapidly over the pages of the comic books, and he’d smile or frown in sync with the action, immersed in the story.
He tilted his head to look at me and went back to his reading.
“Your friends told me you might come, and to give you their new address,” he said in very slow Spanish, the words coming out laboriously, as elusive fish reeled from the depths of his brain, his forehead wrinkled, his eyes half closed. “But I lost the paper,” he finished timidly.
I wanted to ask questions, know more, but his Spanish was limited and my Portuguese nonexistent. I put my backpack down and sat at his side, deep in despair. “Where am I going to spend the night? Should I stay here or go back home?” questions I had no answer for kept popping up like hungry uninvited guests.

We were a small group in the small apartment talking and drinking and enjoying ourselves. Cigarette butts filled up the ashtrays, small monuments to the smiles, winks, and laughs shared.
The music coming from a decrepit stereo forgotten in a corner of the room was the soundtrack of the gathering, a timid succession of latest hits mixed with the loud chatter. “It’ll be a few minutes; we'll say hi and then leave,” Deisy had promised almost three hours ago, when she introduced me to the group and disappeared to get changed. I got sucked into the midst of the impromptu party, propelled by the countless pats on the back in a sea of kisses, big smiles and questions. Oh, the dreaded questions… that, to my surprise, I was able to understand! And answer, too!
When she came to my rescue, I had changed my mind and wanted to stay. I was enjoying the moment, appreciating every uttered word. “This must be what the Zen nuts are always talking about!” I thought, realizing the feeling of inclusion that my moderate command of the language allowed me to enjoy. I was “in the zone,” and I couldn’t believe it. Portuguese was not a strange language anymore; it was a long-lost friend, and we were catching up!

Waiting for Eduardo, I kept flipping the pages of the comic books morosely. He had gone to look for somebody, leaving his precious cargo under my supervision. Like Sisyphus pushing his rock up the mountain, I turned the pages, trying to make sense of the words; unlike him, with every repetition my rock became smaller and lighter, one word at a time. The boy returned a few minutes later with two girls: his sister and a friend. They handed me a set of keys and told me I could stay at the house for the night. By the time I fell asleep, in the same bed my cousins used a few days earlier, I had read all the comic books, learned a few words, and had a date with Deisy, Eduardo’s sister.

The beach was as wide as long, and if I hadn’t known the ocean was there, I would have desisted and gone back to the house. We would go to the beach early in the morning, and she would talk nonstop. I’d practice the language with her until her skin became brown and speckled with drops of sweat and tanning lotion. It was the same color as the bottles of the beer we would drink, ice-cold Brahma or Skol, in the evening at the bar. She would laugh at my mistakes and correct me with a soft “não, não, não!”, amused and annoyed with my inability, like a mother cat reining in a distracted cub back into the den.
Lately, the people resting in the cheap wicker chairs had been ignoring us. I was getting to know their language and culture, and they were getting familiar with me, in a symbiosis that would make us all the same: people having a good time.

It was a hot night in a hot summer when we had to say goodbye. Legião Urbana’s “Tempo Perdido” sounded from the window of a passing car, framing the moment. Just a few weeks had passed, but the attachment had grown in geometric proportions. I considered moving to Alta Floresta, in the north of Brazil, her hometown. “Você é maluco,” she said — you are crazy. But I meant it, and she did not reject the idea. We parted ways with a kiss and the promise of meeting again soon. To my astonishment, the whole conversation took place in Portuguese, no clarifications needed!

Sometimes I come across one of her letters. They transport me to the 80s, Piçarras and Deisy.
We corresponded profusely, always waiting for the next reunion. When I read her letters, I know them by heart; it is evident that Portuguese is the official language of our relationship. A language in which every word and every idiom comes with its little background story, like small attachments to very short messages.
The learning had been seamless, invisible, and permanent.