Green and Blue

Isabela's grandmother had died of natural causes, in her sleep, and would be buried the next day. But when she noticed the missing calls, it was already the next morning, and the road between the island of Florianópolis and the small town where her grandmother lived, on the border of Rio Grande do Sul with Uruguay, took about twelve hours. The news came to Isabela as a contradiction: from one moment to the next, she was out of time. So she and J. packed their bags as fast as they could, before first light and in freezing silence.

It was Isabela's car, but J. argued she drove too slow, so he was the one behind the steering wheel when they crossed the bridge towards the mainland. After leaving the city where they had lived together for half a decade, J. got on the highway and sped southward, until being forced to stop at the first gas station they found open. The road was deserted except for the truck drivers already repeating the day before, and the masked clerk kept rubbing one hand over another while waiting for Isabela to find her wallet.

J. turned the car back on before she even opened the door, and then asked where her food was after she handed him the crumpled ham and cheese sandwich she had just bought. She answered by lifting up the foam cup full of black coffee, which she drank in short sips, using the heat to warm up her cold fingers. They were gliding along the echoing highway when the dark sky began to grow brighter, and while she watched the sun pierce the mist and the land with its rays, she wondered how could she be out of time if her grandmother’s passing had already happened and no amount of time would reverse it.

By the end of her coffee and with the conquering sun glowing behind sparse morning clouds, she concluded that her grandmother's death was inevitable, and the contradiction she felt was only apparent. She was not, from one moment to the next, out of time; she was out of time before that, she just didn't know it. And even if they sped up trying to reverse the clock, it would be useless: time had passed and she had lost it. The only thing she could do was accept it.

"Look, we're past the state line," J. said, hours later, looking at the sign that marked the entrance to his wife's home state. "We’re gonna make it.”

He couldn’t know that for sure, however. There were nine hours between them and the town, and an entire state needed to be crossed. But even if he was right, would it make a difference? Isabela could explain to J. that there was no rush. That the time they arrived didn’t matter, they could only move forward and the road would take as long as it took. But he wouldn’t want to hear that. Who would? So she didn’t say anything. She just watched him make another unnecessary overtake and steer away from yet another dead animal killed by the road.

"You’re not gonna eat all day?" he said. “You should eat something, anything.”

Isabela didn't disagree. She should eat, but that didn’t mean she could. She needed to be empty for what was to come, and if she put anything solid in her body, it would punish her by immediately expelling it. So when they stopped at the next gas station, the only thing she bought for herself was another cup of black coffee, which she once again sipped slowly, holding the warm cup between her stiff hands.

The landscape had first been made up of small towns, rice plantations, pottery factories, wholesale clothing stores, and more small towns. They kept following the coast, with the shining sea on their left, until they got off the BR-101 highway and headed west, deeper into the country and leaving the ocean behind. By the time the sun at the top of the sky marked noon and the clouds cleared, they had passed Porto Alegre, the largest city in the state, and after that the factories and clothing stores became fewer and fewer, and the fields and crops dominated the view.

They were quiet for most of the way, talking only as much as they needed to. J. was concentrating on what was right in front of his eyes, trying to drive as fast as he could without getting caught by the speed cameras. Even so, Isabela knew it wouldn't last. At some point, he would ask something, in an attempt to start small talk, and after they talked about one small thing, he would ask her about another, and then another, until they were having a normal conversation and everything, in his mind, was well and settled. She didn’t blame him for trying, she just knew him too well to fall for it.

J. came from a big and happy family full of nieces and cousins. They took Isabela in and made her feel like she belonged, but that had been some time ago, and only went on for a short while. Now they watched her cautiously, aware of her effects on his life. To put it simply, she was bad for him. They knew it, she knew it. The only person who seemed to deny this was J., but even this was not a surprise: part of his personality was precisely made up of a blind spot, an inability to accept defeat even when it was sitting right next to him.

The first attempt at conversation came after at least six hours driving together, when the changing landscape marked the beginning of the Gaucho countryside, with the highway replaced by a single road, and the roadside buildings increasingly spaced out by rows of pinus trees and long green fields. 

"Hell," J. said, forced to drive slower because of the narrower road. "That’s a whole lot of nothing."

Then he looked over and inspected Isabela's face.

“Is it going to be like this the rest of the way?”

“No,” she replied. “It’s gonna get worse.”

“How so?”

“The road gets older. More potholes, fewer places to stop.”

He nodded.

“Did you and your mother make this trip often when you were a kid?”

“I don’t know. Not often,” she said. “Once a year, I guess.”

“Yeah… No, it’s a long way. No planes too, right?”

J. tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, then pretended to look around before turning to Isabela.

“How’re you holding up?”

“I’m fine.”

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

Isabela took a short breath before answering.

"There really isn’t much to talk about."

"Well… some childhood memory, maybe?"

Isabela thought for a moment, but remembered nothing. He continued.

"I mean, I know you guys weren't close. But there must be something you remember."

She turned her face right and gazed through the closed window.

“I remember blue,” she said.

“Blue?”

“Yes, the color blue.”

“Where from?” he asked. “Her house?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” 

He only stayed silent long enough to think about what to ask next.

“Maybe a toy you had?”

“I don’t know.”

“A piece of clothing someone made you wear?”

“I really don’t know.”

He sighed. And they returned to silence.

Looking at the landscape, Isabela thought that J. didn't deal well with death because there was nothing to solve, nothing he could do about it. But her grandmother’s death was inevitable, first of all, by definition: it had already happened. And even if her grandmother were still alive, her death would have been inevitable all the same, the main reason being that she was nearly a hundred years old. And although Isabela did feel a certain surprise when she heard the news, it quickly transformed into the dull feeling she had when watching the sunrise. Nothing more than a reminder that time continues to move forward, that it needs to move forward, that it always will.

Isabela did have some memories of her grandmother. Not from childhood, as J. wanted, but some from adolescence and several from early adulthood. She clearly remembered how, during the last visit with Isabela's mother still alive, her grandmother kept forgetting both their names; sometimes she called Isabela by her mother's name, and sometimes she called Isabela's mother by Isabela’s great-grandmother's name. There was no point in correcting anything, only to repeat the correction a few moments later, so they just spent the afternoon with her, talking about things from the past while looking at photos with weathered edges.

After her mother died, Isabela visited her grandmother just once more. Sitting on the plastic chair of the nursing home, she told her grandmother that her daughter had died, and the woman just stared at her with curiosity, with a giggle at the corner of her lips. How could she have died if she was sitting right in front of her? Isabela didn't insist. Insisting seemed as cruel and unnecessary as correcting the names she used. And, in that brief instant, Isabela envied the older woman. She would never experience the death of her daughter as Isabela experienced the death of her mother. Protected by oblivion, time no longer afflicted her. She had also lost it, even if she didn't know it.

Without knowing why, Isabela never visited her grandmother again. Maybe because of the distance between them; maybe because of the frustration of visiting someone who doesn't remember who you are; maybe because of the discomfort of being mistaken for her mother; or, perhaps, because for her grandmother, Isabela's mother was still alive, and Isabela felt in her presence the shadow of something lost. She didn't know the exact reason, but it didn't matter anymore; it was all in the past now. And still thinking about her last visit, Isabela concluded that the envy she had felt made no sense at all. What’s the difference between remembering and not remembering? What had happened would forever be the same, and an attachment to memories seemed nothing more than that, an attachment.

J. didn't try to ask any more questions, until he let out a gasp when the trees around the road disappeared completely, replaced by flat green fields overtaking the landscape in all directions and reaching out to the horizon. The road ahead was a line across the plains, sometimes rising and sometimes descending, but always in the same direction. And as she looked up, Isabela remembered which blue permeated her memories: it was the blue of the sky, so vast it was claustrophobic, so impossibly light it seemed about to collapse.

Isabela felt sick. She bent forward, bringing her hand to her mouth.

“What’s it?” J. asked.

“Stop the car.”

As soon as they stopped moving, Isabela opened the door and threw up on the asphalt. J. got out of the car, walked over to her side and crouched down, watching her vomit yellow bile.

"See?" he said, with his hands clasped on top of his head. "I told you to eat something! Fuck, I should have made you eat something."

Isabela ignored him. She took off her seat belt, got out of the car slowly and rinsed her mouth with water, spitting it all out on the grass beside the road.

J. cleaned the asphalt, throwing water over it until any sign of her sickness was gone, and then he turn to check on her.

"You should sit down."

"No," she said, leaning her back on the cold metal of the car. "I'm better. I just needed to throw up."

They stood there for a while, waiting for time to pass. Isabela took a few deep breaths, filling her lungs with cold air and exhaling the warm breath into her pale hands. J. kept pacing around, shifting his gaze between his own feet and the surrounding landscape.

"It’s incredible,” he said, following the green grass until his eyes met the blue sky. “It's a shame I'm seeing it for the first time." 

She agreed with a nod. But he stared at her, expecting a better answer.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s not your fault,” he replied quickly. “I should’ve insisted on coming here before all this.”

He walked a little further, crossed his arms, and turned to her.

"Maybe we could visit another day, another time."

Isabela put her hands back in her coat pockets. Why did he insist on this routine? Didn’t he know her long enough to know it was pointless? Or had he held onto it so long he couldn’t let it go anymore? She hadn't asked him to go with her. She had even tried to get him to stay home, but he said he couldn't leave her alone. Tired of arguing, she agreed.

"I wonder how much one of these old houses costs around here," he said with a faint smile. "Imagine breathing air like this every day."

She shook her head. No amount of fresh air in the world would be enough.

"You’re not gonna say anything?"

"Come on," she said. "You know what I'm going to say."

"No, I don’t,” he said. “Or maybe I need to hear it again.”

She took another sip of water to calm her stomach. He waited for an answer, but still she said nothing.

"We need to talk about this, Bela," he insisted.

She raised her head and stared up at the clear, cloudless sky.

“No,” she said. “We don’t.”

He opened his arms wide and she turned her eyes to him. For an instant, framed by the green fields, he looked as Christ crucified.

“Why not? Why can’t you talk to me?”

 “You think that talking about things will solve them,” she replied. “You think that things need to be solved.”

He reacted as if she had slapped him.

“And how’s that wrong? You don't think talking can help?” 

“No, I don’t. It’s all in the past now. We need to accept it.” 

“Your grandmother’s gone, but not your memories of her.”

“So what? She’s gone all the same.”

“What about us?” he asked.

“What about us?” she replied.

“Is there no need to talk either? No way to work this out?”

“We talked more than enough.”

“It’s not right, you know…”

She agreed, but still didn’t say anything.

He raised his voice, “After all I did…”

And Isabela felt the sickness coming back again.

“Five fucking years and that’s all I get? ‘No, I don’t want to talk, thank you’?”

She filled her mouth with water trying not to throw up again, and then spit it all out onto the grass.

“You can’t just tell me we’re getting a divorce and that you don’t want to talk about it.”

She wiped her mouth with the sleeve of her jacket and stared at the empty fields. How would it feel to lie in them? To close her eyes, become dust, fall to the earth and sprout as grass? To feel nothing more than rain, to hear nothing but the wind?

 “Are you really not going to say a fucking thing?”

J. walked around, his hands on his waist and his head shaking in pure rage and disbelief.

“Fuck you,” he said in a low voice, with his back turned. “I should just leave you here.”

“You should,” she replied, without meaning to.

He turned to her, surprised to get an answer.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s okay. You did.”

“How can you be so cold?”

She flashed him her teeth, and he immediately put his hand on his forehead.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m not in your place to judge.”

“But you do, don’t you?”

“I don’t, I’m just angry-”

“Can’t you just admit it?” she interrupted. “Not even once?”

“Admit to what?”

 “How strange this all is. That you think this whole thing is fucked up. That you feel this is wrong just as I do, that you have felt it even before my mother died, that everything afterwards just confirmed it,” she said fast, before slowing down. “That although you do love me, and I know you love me, you also hate me. And that’s okay. It’s all right, J., it really is… I get it.”

She sighed.

He shook his head.

“I don’t hate you…”

“Why?” she asked, all emotion in her voice gone. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“I don’t know how to answer why I don’t hate my wife…”

He leaned on the car next to her and looked straight ahead, but he didn’t pay attention to the scenery anymore. He looked defeated, finally.

And after some time, they got back into the car and started going forward again.

It wasn’t that Isabela didn’t understand his frustration. He was probably still feeling the same surprise and contradiction she had felt when she heard of her grandmother's passing. They were together forever, until, from one moment to the next, they would never be together again. But this contradiction was also only apparent; what they first had was over long ago, even if he didn't realize it. It was bound to end, like everything is, and his feelings would pass in time, just like any others. There was nothing to do other than wait. Time is the only sure antidote to hope.

The closer they got to the border with Uruguay, the greater the distance between the buildings became, and J. no longer seemed excited by the landscape. When they passed a sign warning that this was the last gas station for the next hour, he got off the road and headed towards the gas pumps. But as they got closer, the broken windows warned that the station was abandoned, and from then on each kilometer made him more anxious, staring at every new construction full of expectation until his wishes were confronted by reality.

He promised Isabela they would make it in time, and she replied that it didn't matter, that the only thing she needed to do was to get the key to her grandmother's house and settle the bills from the funeral home and the nursing home. He gave her a glance, as if pretending he didn't hear a single word. "What if we stop at the next house we see and ask for gas?" he asked, and Isabela replied that it was a bad idea. Fixing her gaze as far as she could, she concluded J. would never understand it. It didn't matter when the next town would come or what might happen. There were only two paths: forward or backward. They couldn't go back, so they had to go forward. And if they ran out of gas, there was nothing they could do about it.

It wasn't long after the car's dashboard warned that the tank was on reserve that they passed a sign announcing the entrance to Isabela’s hometown. J. gave a relieved sigh, hit the steering wheel, and let out a shout of excitement. Houses became a normal sighting again, and the surrounding area became more and more full of people, until the whole town emerged at once, filled with simple houses glued to each other and two or three-story buildings appearing for the first time.

They drove on, heading toward the center of the town, and in a few minutes the residential dwellings gave way to commercial buildings, all closed because of the COVID lockdown and leaving the streets as empty as if on a Sunday. When they stopped to ask for directions, an old man, sitting on a folding chair on the sidewalk and drinking mate, told them to go ahead, that the funeral home was near the bus station, on the main avenue, on the Brazilian side of the border with Uruguay. When they got there, finding it wasn't hard: it was the only building with people in front of it, small groups keeping a distance from each other. Isabela asked J. to stop the car as far away from the people as he could, and after parking, she followed him inside the building.

They didn't make it in time, the clerk told Isabela. Then she turned to J. and asked if he was a blood relative, before telling him he would have to wait outside. Inside the main office, the manager of the funeral home tried to explain to Isabela, between apologies and pleas for understanding, that because of the new coronavirus the procedures had to take place in less than twenty-four hours, both for public health reasons and because of the unexpected high demand; but that a small ceremony had taken place in a respectful manner, with a wreath sent by the nurses from the nursing home, followed by the burial in the municipal cemetery. Isabela listened to every word in silence, staring into the masked man's distressed eyes. When he finished talking, she thanked him and asked what she needed to do next.

After leaving the funeral home, Isabela found J. sitting on the hood of the car. As she approached, she realized he was crying.

"I can't do this anymore, Bela," he said as he noticed her.

"I know..." she replied, and sat down beside him.

The sunlight was almost gone now, and the streetlamps were already lit.

"I just... I can't," he said between sobs.

"It's okay."

She put her hand on his back.

"Can you forgive me?" he asked, looking at her with bloodshot eyes.

"There’s nothing to forgive, J." she assured him.

"I thought we could make it in time.”

"You did all you could."

"Did you even see her?" he asked.

"Yes, I did," she replied. "Just for a few minutes, but I did."

She placed his warm hand between her cold ones.

"Thank you," she said. “For everything.”

He tried to smile, but failed. Then he wiped his eyes quickly, as if afraid to change his mind, and handed her the car keys.

“I’m going home,” he said. “I’m going to rent a car, or try to get a bus maybe. I don’t know, I just can’t stay here tonight.”

“You do what you need to do.”

“Will you be okay?”

“I will,” she said. “I promise.”

He picked up his suitcase from the trunk, and then looked at her once more, perhaps hoping she would ask him to stay or wondering if they should exchange a hug or a kiss. Isabela stared at him quietly, until J. pressed his lips together, turned away, and walked towards the bus station in silence. As she watched him move under the yellow light of the streetlamps, she hoped he wouldn't look back, that he didn’t change his mind, and that someday he could understand everything she felt even though she couldn’t say a single word more.

After some time, when she could no longer see him and everything she felt began to fade away, Isabela started to walk again.

The nursing home was not far, according to the directions given by the manager of the funeral home, and the dark streets carried the smell of burning wood mixed with frozen air. The city looked Uruguayan even on the Brazilian side, with many of the buildings following an old and classic architecture style from decades ago, from the time when the town was a small metropolis, a crossing point between the two promising nations. Since then the buildings had been reformed, but never restored to their former glory, and after the last major meat processing plant closed just before the turn of the century, the town had entered another recession, with resident after resident gathering their belongings and heading for the coast in search of work —as Isabela's mother once did.

Hearing her footsteps echo down the old sidewalks, Isabela looked up, trying to catch a glimpse of the stars, but there was still too much light around, and she could barely see any of them. Suddenly, she felt something was following her. She turned back, and a jolt rushed through her body, strong as a wave. But there was nobody there. 

She sat down underneath one of the marquees to rest, looking around at the empty, still streets. Everything looked exactly the same since she was a child, as if the whole city was one great relic, from a time gone by, frozen in a state of disintegration. Isabela took a deep breath, and then another, trying to regain her posture. She took her hands out of her coat and put the palms over her eyes. She needed to be strong now, it wouldn't be much longer.

The manager of the nursing home welcomed her into a room with all the windows open, and Isabela could feel the smell of chlorine entering her body. The man told her she could not talk to her grandmother's nurses, but that they were all sad, that they all loved Isabela's grandmother very much, and that they had separated her belongings into a box, along with some watercolors she had made during the art therapy classes. Isabela decided to leave her grandmother's clothes for donation, and after thanking the manager, she carried everything else to the car, returning the same way she came, but this time by the Uruguayan side, keeping her gaze on the white and aseptic interior of the duty-free stores.

After placing the box on the passenger's seat and putting the key in the ignition, a signal warned her that gas was running low. Isabela ignored it, and turned on the car light to check the contents of the box. Inside, beside the watercolors, she found the keys to her grandmother's house, along with some jewelry of little value, a couple of thick photo albums, and other personal items such as a hairbrush and a pair of slippers. She started the car and drove away from the town center, following the border towards south, driving slow and checking the street names on the paper the nursing home manager had written down directions on.

After about twenty minutes, she found the train tracks the manager had told her about, and made a turn to enter a dirt road. Her grandmother’s house was small but on a large lot, without fences or partitions, and Isabela parked with the trunk turned to the porch. She took her suitcase out and left it beside her while she tried to figure out which key opened the front door, but when she managed to get it open, a heavy and damp smell hit her nostrils. She coughed and shielded her face with her hand, then took a few steps in looking for the light switch. When she found it and tried to turn it on, nothing happened. She closed the door and locked it again.

Isabela went back to the car and turned on the dome light, ignoring the warning from the dashboard. The box was on the passenger seat, and she decided to take a look at her grandmother's watercolors. They were made on white paper and, from the look of the paint, using fingers as a brush. They were all green and blue, one color blending with the other in different patterns, sometimes in spirals and sometimes in lines. In one of them, the green spread through the middle of the painting towards the blue, forming the outline of a tree. Isabela put down the drawings. She had seen those images before, even if she couldn’t remember when.

She lowered her car seat, turned off the light, and closed her eyes. At first, her drained body helped her mind stay empty. Behind her eyelids, patterns of light formed in the blackness and then disappeared like fleeting reflections. Half-asleep, she tried to ignore them, but she could feel them growing stronger. They began to take forms and shapes, to gain color and multiply, and then her mind was awake again. She opened her eyes and blinked, but it made no difference. It was a moonless night, but even at the pitch-black field ahead she could see never-ending green lines overlaping never-ending blue lines, and pulsating blue waves crashing against swirling green streams, and then ripples and whirpools and braided serpentines. Surrounded, she didn’t want to see them anymore, so she put the keys on the ignition and turned on the headlights. The field ahead and the tree in the middle of it lit up all at once.

And Isabela felt a memory explode inside her.

It’s a day so hot her dress keeps sticking to her skin. She isn’t more than five or six years old. The house feels cool and it smells like wood and dust and it’s full of creaks everywhere. Her mother wants her outside, both women like to keep an eye on her, she tended to get lost. She’s carrying something in her hand, it feels heavy but maybe her hand is just too small. From the front porch, she can see them in the yard, resting under the long branches of a tree. Her grandmother sits on a low chair made of steel and leather, each strand of hair completely still in the absence of a breeze. Her mother is in a blue dress, stretched out on top of a blanket laid on the ground. They’re talking, or maybe arguing, and her mother is almost convincing her grandmother of something. But Isabela cant’t hear what they’re saying. She cant’t remember if they’re angry or if they’re smiling. She can only remember walking towards them.

 Isabela turned off the headlights as quickly as she could, and the shapes and colors in front of her disappeared as fast as light. She felt like vomiting again and got out of the car. Her hands were shaking, and she pressed her back against the cold metal as she lifted her head and tried to breathe. She needed to walk, to keep going forward, so she turned in the direction of the tree. In the dark, she could barely see where she was stepping, but each step made her a little less nauseous. She was past half the way there when she stumbled and fell to her knees. She was light-headed and weak, and she sat down before deciding to lie down completely. The tree wasn’t far now, and it would have been good if she could have reached it, but the damp grass embracing her body felt right.

Staring at the stars, all her memories seemed long gone, as if belonging to someone else and unable to hurt her anymore. It was peaceful there, and she wished her mother's body had been found, that it was not lost somewhere in the ocean. Not because she had any doubts of the cause of her death—the note she left had been enough—but so that she could bury her mother beside her grandmother, in the same ground as the earth under that tree, the same ground that now pulled her back no matter how far away she got. Together, they could watch the moon rise and fade, the comets pass time and time again, the stars shine and then explode. But that was not possible, she knew it. There’s no escaping time. It had passed, they had lost it. Is there anything more ruthless than a sunrise?

Isabela no longer felt sick. The violent brightness of the day had been replaced by the infinite silence of the stars, and if the darkness was heavy, it was the weight of a blanket that soothes the body before the mind falls asleep. Her hands were cold, but she didn't mind it anymore. She could smell the burning wood coming from the town, and the damp smell of the earth beneath her. Feeling slumber arrive, she closed her eyes.

In her dreams, Isabela felt she had lived the best life she could with what was given to her. She never had children, and never had to fear them watching her fade away. While she had a husband, she was the best wife she could, and in the end she didn't hurt him deep enough that he would never recover. When she was a child, she was a good granddaughter, playful and happy, and brought joy to her grandmother, even if only for a handful of brief moments. While she had a mother, she was a good daughter, and tried to help her as much as she could. Yes, she made mistakes, but no more than everybody else, and when she needed to ask for forgiveness, she did. If she had more time, she could have understood it better, she could have done more, but she only had the time she had, and maybe more time wouldn't do any good.

She was tired and she deserved to rest. There’s so much in life to fight against that one can't fight as much. It's all right to walk away, to break apart. There’s no shame in letting go, in giving up. How many others were not so lucky, to be able to surrender with a whisper, to join the earth where they were born, to unravel under the open sky while breathing in cold and fresh air. If she could do just one more thing, it would be to watch the waves crashing on the shore, but the sea was shining far away now, and this was a good way to go, as good as any. Under the dark sky, she would become dust, turn into dirt and then grass, and in a few years nobody would be able to say she was ever there.