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Overview
A novel of dark obsession, missed connections, and violent love.
Marcos has just been through a divorce and moved into a new apartment. He feels alienated from his ex-wife, from his daughter, from society; everything feels flat and fake to him. He begins to receive letters at his new address from an anonymous troubled woman who signs off as A. and who clearly believes she is writing to the former tenant, her ex-lover, in the aftermath of a violent heartbreak. Marcos falls under the spell of the manic, hypnotic missives and for the first time in years, something moves him.
Blue Flowers alternates between the letters detailing the dissolution of A.'s relationship, and Marcos' growing fixation with this damaged person. The letters become a kind of exorcism as both A.'s epistolary affair and Marcos' personal life reach a crisis point. Possessed by A., he is driven to discover her true identity. Blue Flowers is a dark portrait of desire, undermining accepted truths about love and sex, violence and fear, men and women.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781594631757 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 01/28/2020 |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.30(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.90(d) |
About the Author
Carola Saavedra is the author of several novels in Brazilian Portuguese, including the award-winning Blue Flowers. She lives in Rio de Janeiro.Daniel Hahn is an award-winning writer, editor, and translator with more than sixty books to his name. His translations (from Portuguese, Spanish, and French) have won him the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the International Dublin Literary Award and have been shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize, among others.
Read an Excerpt
I
When he'd finished reading the letter, he put it back into the envelope and left it on the table, standing a moment in silence, feeling strange, unsettled. He looked at the little girl who was lying on the living room rug, drawing a picture, the rain outside never-ending. He decided to forget about the letter, to forget the whole business.
Instead, he wondered how to distract a child on a rainy day, wondered about maybe phoning for a pizza, wondered whether it was perhaps still too early for lunch. He considered calling his ex-wife to suggest a family lunch. No, he wouldn't do that. She'd get the wrong idea, and he was very happy with the way things were. He considered calling Fabiane, who would eagerly welcome a call from him. No, the presence of the child would make any meeting seem too much like an invitation, something with family and potential.
He went back to thinking about the letter, still a little confused; the truth was that he had just read a letter meant for someone else, had intimate access to someone else. He felt both unsettled and attracted to this correspondence that did not belong to him. It would never have crossed his mind to open a letter that wasn't for him, and now there was this indiscretion, this curiosity, which intrigued him; perhaps it was the light blue envelope, the writing in black ink, with a fountain pen. He recognized this at once, remembering one he'd had when he was a child, a gift from his grandfather; he found it strange that anyone should still write with a fountain pen, that anyone should still be writing letters at all.
In the place of a sender's name, just that letter A. No address, nothing. Before opening it, he had already guessed that A. was a woman, perhaps because of the attractive, rounded hand, perhaps because of the letter itself. At the time he justified opening the envelope with an assurance that he had no way of returning it-who would he return it to? And he opened it to see whether he might discover some clue, some name, some address, he thought, as though excusing himself. He kept thinking about the letter for a few moments longer, until the girl called out to him:
"Dad?"
"What, Manuela?"
"Dad, look!"
The girl brought over a piece of paper.
"Dad, look what I drew."
He took the drawing, looked it over carefully, a circular shape and a few undefined scribbles crisscrossing it. He held on to the piece of paper somewhat unsure, and perhaps his expression was a little doubtful; the girl pointed, insisting.
"Dad, look."
"How lovely, sweetie. Is it me?"
"No, it's Felipe."
"Oh, Felipe-really good. Really, yes, it's beautiful."
He felt just a touch of jealousy that, sure, of course, Felipe, even the cat was more important than her own father. Right away he felt ridiculous, comparing himself to the cat. The girl came closer and held out her hand.
"Give it to me."
"What do you want, the picture?"
"Yeah."
He handed the sheet back to her. He was still thinking about Felipe, the cat she had been given right after the separation, a goggle-eyed black cat. His ex-wife, hoping to compensate for any trauma and maybe even to distract the girl, had gotten her the animal, a cat with a person's name. The girl had chosen the name herself, and where she'd gotten "Felipe" from he would never know; it was just one of those kid things, his ex-wife explained with an ironic smile. Fine. Felipe. No one had notified him, no one had asked his opinion. His ex-wife made him feel like a stranger.
He looked at his daughter, a redhead with very pale, curly hair, three years old. He could hardly believe it when he thought about it, that he was the father of a three-year-old girl, how could such a thing have happened. Being a father was like waking up one day on a different planet, with no warning, no time to prepare, nothing. Waking up one day completely normally and all of a sudden being a father, with all the demands of being a father. In truth, he was never going to get used to it. And now here she was, here by his side on weekends. He had tried to explain that he didn't have the time, too much work he said, but his ex-wife complained, Don't forget she's your daughter, too. Sure, he wasn't going to forget. And so there she was, and soon the girl would get bored of drawing, and that rain outside was going to be a problem; on sunny days at least there was the beach. He had to think of getting something to eat, a pizza.
"Manuela, what do you think about us going out for a pizza?"
The girl ignored him, focused on her sheet of paper. He remained silent, he never knew what to say to his daughter, and he thought she looked at him with suspicion. She cried each time her mother left. He felt awful; the girl didn't like him. His ex-wife explained that it was because he didn't like the cat. And it was true, he really didn't like the cat-he'dnever had pets, a cat, dog, hamster, parrot, those animals that are good for nothing but racking up bills and creating messes. He wouldn't have known what to do with a cat, but his ex-wife managed to make him feel guilty for not wanting his daughter's beloved cat to get his apartment all dirty.
It's very complicated being a father. Who's to say that children are necessarily going to like their parents? he wondered sadly. Children ought to come with an instruction manual. Pregnant women, too. During the pregnancy he'd gone with his ex-wife to a parenting course, all the men so proud, stroking their partners' bellies. Those huge bellies, all out of proportion. There he was, feeling quite wrong about it from beginning to end. He couldn't find it beautiful, that belly, his wife with her legs swollen, her round face; she seemed strange to him, as though he didn't know her, or as though she were hiding something from him the whole time. His wife would complain that he was distant, that he wasn't paying her any attention, that he wasn't interested in the pregnancy, in the baby, that he didn't even touch her. But no one had asked his opinion, after all. One day she had just shown up pregnant, happy-she'd prepared a special dinner just to tell him, pregnant and happy with a radiant smile. And then weeping because his smile hadn't been as radiant as hers. Women were like that, he thought, when they wanted something they didn't care, they didn't ask, they just went off and did it, and then they felt deeply disappointed when other people didn't share their excitement. The girl was still drawing.
"Aren't you hungry, Manuela? Let's go get a pizza, that ham pizza you really like, don't you want one of those?"
"No."
The girl shook her head as though needing to accentuate her no with a gesture. Lying there on the rug, her colored pencils scattered all over the room, with a drawing pad he'd given her as a present, all her attention was focused on another portrait of Felipe.
He picked up the letter again. It had arrived that same day, that morning. He had just woken up, and taking advantage of the fact that the girl was still sleeping, he'd put on a T-shirt, a pair of shorts and flip-flops, picked up an umbrella and gone down to buy something for breakfast. He hadn't even looked in the mailbox, and only on the way back had he remembered that thing he'd ordered online. Not yet. But there was the letter.
It was a light blue envelope, with the name of someone who wasn't him written in a careful, rounded hand, and underneath it was his address, written exactly right, and at the top was a stamp commemorating something he couldn't make out, franked by the mail, dated the previous day. In the place where the sender's name would normally go was merely the initial A., no address, no other clue. He couldn't remember the last time he had received a letter, he thought, perhaps when he was a kid, a teenager, maybe he'd never received a personal letter, and he found this idea kind of funny, imagining that this really might be his first. And if it really was his first, it wasn't addressed to him, he thought, as he stored it away in the plastic supermarket bag.
When he had come into the apartment that morning, he shut the door and put everything down on top of the table. The girl must still be asleep. He took the envelope, examined it again, a heavy envelope; clearly a long letter, he thought. He left it on the side table, next to the phone and the previous days' correspondence. He went over to the kitchen, put the water to boil, set the table for when the girl woke up, arranged what he had bought: bread, cheese, jam. He rarely ate anything himself before midday but his ex-wife never tired of giving him all manner of instructions for the girl: that she should eat properly, that she shouldn't have too much junk, always the same. When the coffee was ready, he poured himself a cup and went into the living room. He took up the letter and sat at the table.
Of course he shouldn't open a letter that wasn't for him. But it could be important, he thought. Yes, it was definitely something important. It wasn't some anonymous letter, the addressee might have been well aware of who A. was. Who would go to all the trouble of writing a letter in this day and age? Most likely a woman. And then there was that rounded handwriting. And yet, how could he even be sure it really was a letter? It could be anything, a document, a magazine cutting. Yet, for some reason, he was sure it was a letter, he knew it all along. Just as those thoughts began to appear, he was simultaneously assailed by a certain feeling of unease, the recollection of nosy old ladies leaning out of their windows, asking where have you been, where are you going. Best to forget the whole business. He would hand the letter over to the doorman, he'd know what to do with it, most likely the addressee was the former tenant of the apartment, he hadn't been here long, after all. No doubt the doorman knew who the person was, how to track him down. He put the letter back onto the table and decided to read the newspaper.
He was already on his second cup of coffee when the girl woke up. She came into the living room, tottering slightly.
"Hey, Manuela, good morning."
The girl didn't reply, she headed for the TV and sat down on the sofa, not yet fully awake. On the screen were fantastical beings, hybrids, chimeras, nothing he could recognize. If cartoons had only been the same as the ones parents watched as children, communicating with kids would be a whole lot easier. Conversation would come right away, naturally, a mix of eagerness and nostalgia, without that anxiety, that effort to do something the child would find interesting. Without the need for a cat getting the apartment all dirty. There had to be some kind of training course, How to Talk to a Child. Nobody ever thought of things like that.
"Come over here, Manuela, let's get some breakfast."
The girl didn't reply, her eyes glued to the TV.
"Come on, you can go back to watching your cartoon later."
She was ignoring him, he thought a little impatiently, were all children like this? What was he supposed to do, force her to sit at the table with him, argue, turn authoritarian, an attitude he himself had so often criticized in his own parents? And if she were to cry, that would be even worse, for sure. She was an atypical child, she almost never cried, she was hardly any trouble at all, but she had that look in her eyes, a challenging look that made him feel uncomfortable, inadequate. How was it possible that a three-year-old girl should manage to make him feel that way, his own daughter? It was as though she demanded something of him, something he had no idea about and had no way of giving to her. He felt guilty. Maybe that's what it is, he thought, guilt. He chose instead to go to the kitchen himself; he prepared her a glass of chocolate milk. He came back, this time trying a more determined tone of voice.
"Here, Manuela, drink this."
The girl did as she was told, she took the glass and started drinking. He considered making her say thank you but decided against it. He wasn't the only one at fault, after all, there was also her mother, his ex-wife, who wasn't bringing her up right. He'd say this to her as soon as he got the chance. He sensed that any moment now the girl was going to spill the cup of milk on the sofa. She was distracted from the whole world. He went back to reading the paper. From time to time, he thought about the letter again. He spent the whole morning like this. The girl watched TV, the glass still half full on the coffee table, while he read the paper, wondering whether or not to open the letter.
He ended up opening it. He took the envelope and sat down at the dining table. The girl had given up on TV and decided to do some drawing, she'd scattered the colored pencils all over the rug. He opened the envelope carefully. White paper, five sheets printed from a computer, he looked unhurriedly for the signature, also typed, just the initial. He found it odd that the letter hadn't been handwritten, after all what was the point of going to the trouble of going to the post office to send a letter if it wasn't for that intimacy, real handwriting, those little revelations, like on the envelope, he thought, feeling strangely cheated, it was denying him a confidence, that rounded handwriting. The same hand that had written his address and that name that wasn't his. The black ink on the blue envelope, ink from a fountain pen, he knew, not from a ballpoint, maybe that was it, that detail, he'd recognized it at once, the fountain pen, fingers that always ended up getting stained, maybe that was what made him so curious. It ought to have been handwritten, he thought, a little disappointed. He began to read; the letter was addressed to someone she called "my darling." It was a love letter.