July 2005
Andriy visits Kaká in late July.
*
If Andriy were five years younger, he would turn off his phone, pack one and only one bag, and get on an airplane leaving only a brief note behind. As it is, though, what he does is pour Kristen a glass of wine.
"There's this boy," he says, "in Brazil." She takes a sip.
"Sheva, you're twenty-nine years old."
"There's this boy," he repeats, looking at the tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, the way her fingers are wrapped around the glass. Twenty-nine, he thinks, and wonders when that became old.
"You have a son."
Andriy has a son who's being taught English. He has a son he loves, a son he doesn't know if he's going to be able to speak with, a son who's going to grow up and make his own life, and what Andriy wants more than anything is to be a good father, but maybe he isn't good for Jordan - maybe's he's just another traveling soldier, searching for something he can never hold or kill or love.
This is the fear that haunts him during the quiet morning moments, the fear that he has lined his ribs and lungs with, the fear that drives him.
And even though it is only July, even though he can't possibly know for sure now, Andriy looks at his wife and says, "I've never been to São Paulo," and "I will give up so much for you."
*
He has dinner with Kaká and his family the first night. What it feels like: Looking in on happiness. What he feels like: A stranger, an intruder, someone who has no right to be a part of this.
It isn't nearly as bad as that sounds, though, because seeing Kaká laugh, shove his brother around, tell bad jokes with his father, and almost accidentally put his elbow in a plate of stew, it - it's a gift, the rare kind. They stretch, fold, surround him easily, their strange accents and ready laughter oddly warm for the kind of family Andriy had expected.
They are, more than anything else, gracious. Kind. Caroline smiles at him and speaks in Italian, her hair smooth and soft and lit gold and red at the right angles over her shoulders. She talks to him about economics and classical philosophy, Brazil and its beaches. Smells like vanilla beans and late summer honey. Kaká's father gives him a firm handshake, slap on the back, his mother a kiss on the cheek. Rodrigo almost stutters. Says that they have to play football together sometime. They are generous people, his family, but then again, Andriy is a respected man now. It's cynical of him, but he can't help but think that kindness is easy when the recipient doesn't need or ask for it.
Kaká just stands, sits by Andriy's side and smiles and smiles, and Andriy feels profoundly guilty. He talks more animatedly than usual at dinner, over traditional Brazilian food the chef had made, virado à paulista and chorizo; smiles his best smile because of that. Seeing how very heartbreakingly happy Kaká is in that moment, Andriy is terrified. He is scared by the thought of making someone else so happy through such small actions, through just being himself and being there. It's a responsibility, he thinks, and a dangerous one at that.
*
The next day, they eat lunch alone. Kaká brings him to a small niche in the wall that can barely be called a restaurant. The air is thick with the smell of cooking food and loud laughter, the floor worn away at spots but the windows sparkling, film posters and advertisements yellowing on the walls. Macunaíma, Vidas Secas, and Limite, they proudly flourish upon the faded red brick of the interior.
Kaká waves to the middle-aged woman at the counter. She nods at Andriy, lifts the corners of her mouth in a knowing sort of smile. They sit towards the back of the room on worn wooden chairs, and Kaká looks almost apologetic.
"I used to hide out here as a kid, even though it was on the wrong side of town. Their feijoada is amazing, we never had it at home. It's a bit run down, sorry. I know you're used to nice things."
Andriy pauses. He's not.
"I'm not used to you." He didn't mean to say that out loud.
Kaká ducks his head, fiddles with a plastic fork. Later, after a few Caipirinhas and farofa, the waitress brings over a plate of cuscuz branco and two spoons. The tapioca is sweet and thick on his tongue; Andriy looks across the table at Kaká, the density of the sunlight hitting the back of his neck, the lines of his face so soft, still, soft and pleased, and he thinks, No, I'm not used to you, this you, this place, and it feels like a beginning. A good start. Kaká's phone rings to some absurd pop tune and Andriy can't quite shake how surreal this feels to him: sitting at a table with this man in a tiny cramped restaurant in South America, lime and salt and sugar at the back of his throat, listening to him talk to Ronaldinho.
Afterwards, Kaká walks with him to the beach. Accidentally shoves him into the water, Andriy's new white shirt ruined. Later, when they're standing at the edge of the waves, digging their toes into the sand with a vindictive sort of childishness, Kaká asks him, "Have you ever seen a beach this beautiful?", hair in his eyes and smiling not to the world but to himself, pants rolled up halfway to his knee.
Andriy says, "No,", kisses the hitch of Kaká's shoulder, and understands that lying is a form of kindness, sometimes.
(He remembers. There was this one beach. The sand wasn't as white, and the water was greyer. It was colder, that beach, wilder, more threatening, and Andriy had never seen anything as desolate and devastating at dawn, nor as smooth and tranquil at sunset. He doesn't think it ever had a name.)
When Andriy goes back to Italy, that shirt is still in his suitcase, stiff with salt and green in places from the algae. He doesn't throw it away or put it in the laundry basket. The smell of it reminds him of something long gone.
*
July was when Andriy first kissed Kaká. He recalls this, too. Kaká had asked, Do you remember much of your childhood?, in careful, stuttering Italian, and Andriy had frozen with his hand against the door of his locker, momentarily trapped in, by, between all that time. No, not really, he answered at last, and turned around and kissed him so he wouldn't ask anything else.
Two days later,
Why do you wear that cross if you don't believe?
and Andriy did it again, some goddamned kissing disease, an affliction of the blood and heart, something multiplying and growing, fusing and reacting and threatening to explode.
Notes:
Macunaíma, Vidas Secas
Virado à Paulista - A typical food in São Paulo; consists of rice, tutu de feijão (a paste of beans and manioc flour), sautéed collard greens (couve) and pork chops, typically bisteca, the pork equivalent of the T-bone steak. It is usually accompanied by pork rinds, bits of sausage and a fried egg.
Caipirinha - Brazil’s national cocktail made with fresh fruit, ice, some sugar and Cachaça. Cachaça is Brazil's most common spirit, a distilled alcohol product made from sugar cane similar to rum.
Feijoada - A mixture of black beans, pork and farofa (manioc meal) that has been the national dish of Brazil. It started as a dish for the slaves brought from Africa, made out of cheap ingredients: pork ears, feet and tail, beans and manioc flour.
Farofa - Manioc flour lightly sauteed in butter until it resembles buttered bread crumbs.
Cuscuz branco - Milled tapioca cooked with coconut milk and sugar.
I love you, Wikipedia.
Also, I feel as if I have taken the phrase kissing disease from someone/somewhere. Apologies in advance, I have no idea who though. :(