The Cheese Patio

The Cheese Patio

Personally, I must confess - during my first rendezvous with Nacho's family I couldn't take my eyes off his younger sister. The whole thing seemed fake and weird. Nevertheless, she was real. And so was the mirror reflecting the opaline glaze of her shoulder blade each time she crossed the room where me and Nacho smoked cigarillos while browsing some old magazines of his recently dead father.

Never mind the whys and how we came to be sharing some space and time together. The fact is I was there and I was irregularly impressed. This family had a strange way of showing their feelings and honoring their dearest relatives. Instead of decorating walls with the classic happy faces theme – holiday scenes, weekend gatherings or casual dailies – theirs were stage to a variety of situations where pain and suffering prevailed.

Starting at the entrance hall and following the left side of the corridor, a collection of metallic silver framed photographs depicted seven bodies in their initial state of what some would call, eternal life. Without any makeup or extra preparations, their skin, their mouths – so real, so white and purple, all dimmed and wrinkled – their expressions, conveyed, to a certain degree, a uniquely inverted attraction on the eyes of the beholder. They were all lying in a simple, neatly arranged bed, with no one else on sight; definitely a private place to be. You could argue there's no suffering nor pain in a death body, the point being the evocations triggered were all about that moment of life when life it self gets so thin it becomes to gauzy to even stand as a question.

Before moving into what he named as The Cheese Patio, he took me to the kitchen to greet his two mothers - as he called them - though one was slightly older. These two ladies, in their modest tartan smocks, cooking and talking, embraced my idea of peace and home – cakes, onion soup and a sweet, intriguing aroma resembling that of lemon myrtle and apple. The freshness of this encounter was cut off on our way out - hanging from spikes stuck in between tiles' knuckles of the opposite wall, were a series of Polaroids taken during the birthing of a child. Rawness and despair were obviously central to the collection; one could almost feel the ache, working, performing visceral changes to the parturient's brain as the child was being slowly delivered. To my disbelieve, at a better look I understood the truly reason of a generalized discomfort and shock: a second baby – a stillborn – wrapped in cloth was resting inside a bowl. At this point, much to my relief, two things happened: I heard my friend's voice calling my name and his sister walked in just as I was walking out.

I saluted and excused my clumsiness, to which she, with a smile, held my hand and led me to the patio where Nacho waited. With curtains half risen and opened windows, the spring light and breeze came all the way in. We sat and talked for awhile. He told me about his father and the tragic events leading to his mental illness. For years he had been an art lover and him self a photographer for some magazines. He picked up a pile from a nearby alcove, inviting me to have a look. There was a table between us and I assume some of the furniture must have been of sandal. I always recognize that smell. A mirror on the central column permitted me to catch a glimpse at a distant doorway. As we flipped through, silence got enhanced by the weight of the day and the occasional quiver of the curtains each time the young lady appeared from behind the door. I enjoyed the moment!

With a magazine on my knees and a cigarillo in my mouth - time running by - memories swept my unthoughts, themselves turning into bizarre pictures hanging in my semi-consciousness. This could have been a nice ending to this visit – which in fact was about to end – if I wasn't to stumble into another gruesome vision. Paula, Nacho's sister, was, with the turn of a page, posing in front of me. Her body, as thin and emptied as sculpted impressions on paper, remained yet beautiful and dear. Her face showed no emotions, no attitude towards life. As I was trying to digest this incompatibility, the door bell rung; Paula came out of her room, passing again through the patio. I could follow her and her sensual body on the mirror, since her far appearance at my rear and then for real, her back side slipping in front of me, as if through my fingers. I can't remember who was announced, but Nacho stood up and we left. She waved a goodbye kiss, which I kept hanging next to other luxury items for awhile. Together, all these wax-like images, sometimes melt and drip, other times they recover solidity. Regardless, they never return to the original form.

© 2016, José Eduardo Coelho