Original Language: Portuguese
"Tangerine-Girl" translation by A Pi
Right from the start the name of the aircraft had intrigued her: not "zeppelin" or dirigible, or any other obsolete thing: the great fuse of shiny metal was modernly named blimp. Tiny like a toy, independent, friendly. The aerial base of the American soldiers and the zeppelin station were walking distance from her house. And every so often the soldiers would leave the post and ride around, like tame birds that abandon the roost during a flight rehearsal. It was in this way that, from the very start, the blimp existed as something in and of itself to the girl's eyes - like an animal with a life of its own, it fascinated her like the prodigal mechanic that it was and she found it particularly pretty, all silver, just like a jewel, floating majestically a little below the clouds. It embodied the characteristics of an idol, reminding her a little of Aladdin's slave genie. She had never thought of going into it; she had never even thought that anyone could ride inside of it. No one thinks of riding an eagle, or swimming on a dolphin's back; and yet, the fascinated gaze lingers as long as the eagle and the dolphin keep at it, in a liberated admiration - because it appears to truly be beauty's virtue that it imposes this self-renunciation on our part in exchange for its pure and simple contemplation.
The girl's eyes, therefore, were glued to the blimp without any particular desire, without the shadow of a claim. She did, indeed, see some little heads spying from inside, but they were so miniscule that they didn't seem to be real - they were part of a picture, a decorative element, as compulsory as the big black letters U.S. Navy engraved on the silver bulge. Or maybe they were more like the paper cutout profiles that represent the chauffeurs in toy cars.
Her first contact with the dirigible's crew began in a purely coincidental manner. Breakfast was over; the girl had cleared the table and went to the door that led to the orange grove so she could shake the breadcrumbs off of the towel. Above, a crewmember noticed the white rag tremble between the scattered trees and the sand, and his solitary heart was touched. He lived in that base like a friar in a convent - alone among soldiers and patriotic exhortations. And there she was, next to the wall of the house with a red-tiled roof, shaking a rag between a green patch of orange trees - a red-haired young woman. The pilot was moved by that goodbye. He had flown over her house many times, seeing the people below entering and leaving, and he had thought of how distant men are from each other, how indifferent they are when they pass one another by, each one trapped in his own life. He had been flying over people, watching them, spying on them, and if a few of them turned their eyes his way, not a single one thought about the pilot inside; they only wanted to see the silver beauty circulating through the sky.
But now that girl had thought about him. She shook a rag in the air, like a flag. Undoubtedly she was pretty - the sun glistened on her fiery hair, and a slender silhouette stuck out clearly against the green-and-sand colored background. His heart jumped out for the girl in a grateful impulse; he stuck himself out of the window, flailed his arms about, and screamed: "Amigo! Amigo!" - knowing all the while that the wind, distance, and sound of the motor would make it impossible for him to be heard. He was unsure if the girl had seen his gestures and wanted to reach out to her in a more tangible way. He would like to drop her a flower, a gift. But what could there be inside of a Navy dirigible that would serve as a gift to the young lady? The daintiest object that he found was a big white porcelain mug, heavy like a cannon ball, in which they would soon serve him his coffee. And it was that mug that the pilot flung out- well, not flung out - let fall at a cautious distance from the illuminated figure down below. He let it fall in a delicate gesture, trying to soften the force of gravity so that the object wouldn't shoot out like a projectile but descend smoothly, like an offering.
The girl who shook the towel raised her eyes after hearing the blimp's motor. She saw the young man's arms move up above. She then saw the white object split the air and fall to the sand. It frightened her; she thought it was a bad joke - a boorish prank that American soldiers play. But when she saw the white mug lodged in the ground, in tact, she had a confused perception of the impulse sent to her; she picked it up and saw that engraved on the bottom were the same letters that were on the dirigible's body: U.S. Navy. Meanwhile, the blimp, instead of going far away, made one more slow turn around the house and the orchard. Then the girl raised her eyes again and, deliberately this time, waved the towel, smiling and shaking her head. The blimp made two more turns and slowly moved away - and the girl got the impression that he already missed her. Above, the crewmember thought as well - not about missing anyone, but about something both painful and sweet.
That was how the morning ritual started. Every day the blimp would pass by and every day the girl would wait for it. She no longer took the white towel with her, and sometimes she wouldn't even shake her arms; she would stand still, a clear spot on the sun-bathed earth. It was a relationship of the hawk-gazelle kind: he, a fierce soldier cutting through the air; she, small, fearful, down below, watching him pass with fascinated eyes. Only now the presents, brought purposely from the base, were no longer the crude improvised mug; issues of Life and Time fell from the sky, along with a soldier's cap, and, one day, the crew member threw down the silk, synthetically violet scented handkerchief from his pocket. The handkerchief opened itself up in the air and came flying down like a paper kite. It ended up stuck in the branches of a cashew tree and it took quite a bit of effort on the girl's part to get it down (with the help of a stick used to pick cashews), and even then she scratched it a little, right down the center.
But out of all the presents, the one she liked the most was the first: the heavy, stone-colored mug. She had put it in her room, on top of her desk. At first she used it at the table, at meals, but later gave into her brothers' ridicule. She wound up keeping pens and pencils in it. One day she had a better idea and the porcelain mug was converted into a flower vase. A manac branch, a gardenia, petunias, and a bogari, because in a northeast Brazilian country house's garden there aren't any important roses or expensive flowers.
She began to study her English conversation book with more tenacity. When she went to the movies she paid very much attention to the dialogues, with the intention of picking up not only the meanings of the words but the pronunciation as well. She lent her pilot the faces of all the leading men she had seen on the big screen, and he was successively Clark Gable, Robert Taylor, and Cary Grant. Or he was the blonde young man who died in a naval battle in the Pacific whose name did not appear in the credits. At times he was even smiling and making faces like Red Skelton. Given that she was a little shortsighted, she couldn't get a good look at him from the ground. She saw an outline of a head, some arms waving about, and, from the impression given by the sunbeams, he appeared to be either blonde or brunette.
It didn't occur to her that perhaps it wasn't always the same pilot. And, in actuality, the crew members took turns daily: some took the day off and went for a walk in the city with the girls that made a living around there; others left once and for all for Africa, for Italy. They had created the tradition of the orange grove girl at the station. The pilots gave her a nickname, "Tangerine-Girl". Maybe because of the Dorothy Lamour film, seeing how, for all the American armed forces, Dorothy Lamour is the model of what brunette women from South America and the Pacific Isles should be. Or maybe it was because she always waited for them among the orange trees. Or perhaps because the girl's red hair, when it shimmered in the morning light, had a copper shine much like that of a ripe tangerine. One after another they shared the courtship with the Tangerine girl, as if it were for the greater good. The aircraft pilot made turns, obedient, flying as low as the regulations would permit, while the other, at the window, would look and wave goodbye.
I don't know why it took so long for the young men to think of tossing down a note. Maybe they thought that she wouldn't understand it. They had been flying above her house for over a month when the first message finally fell; it had been etched over the rosy face of a provocative looking woman on the cover of a magazine. Written laboriously, in print letters, with the rudiments of Portuguese that they had learned from the mouths of the girls in the city: "Dear Tangerine-Girl. Please você vem hoje (today) base X. Dancing, show. Oito horas P.M." And on the other side of the magazine, in huge letters, "Amigo", the password between Americans and Brazilians.
The girl didn't understand the meaning behind "Tangerine-Girl". Could it be her? Yes, of course... and she took the nickname as a compliment. She then thought that the two letters at the end, "P.M.", were a signature. Peter, Paul, or Patsy, like Nick Carter's helper? But then she remembered something from her studies: she consulted the last few pages of the dictionary, the ones that list abbreviations, and she verified, slightly disappointed, that the letters meant "between noon and midnight".
She wasn't able to signal an answer because she saw the note when she opened the magazine, after the blimp had turned back around. And she was glad it had happened that way: she felt tremendously scared and timid in the face of the first encounter with her pilot. Today she would see if he was tall and handsome, blond or brunette. She thought about hiding behind the columns of the gate to watch him arrive - and say nothing to him. Or maybe she would gather up the courage to give him her hand; together they would walk to the base, then they would dance the foxtrot and he would whisper sweet nothings into her ear in English, resting his sunburned face in her hair. She didn't think about whether or not her family would let her accept the invite. Everything was happening like a dream - and just like in a dream, everything would be resolved without fights or difficulties.
Long before sunset she was already combed and dressed. Her heart beat and beat insecurely, her head hurt a little, her face was in flames. She decided not to show the invitation to anyone. She wouldn't go to the show, she wouldn't dance; she would talk to him a little at the gate. She rehearsed phrases in English and prepared her ears for the melodious words in the strange language. At seven she turned on the radio and listened languidly to the swing program. One of her brothers passed by, taunted her about the pretty dress, and she didn't even hear him. At seven thirty she was already on the porch, with her eye on the gate and the road. At ten 'til eight, dark for quite some time now, she turned on the small lamp that lighted the gate and left for the garden. And at eight on the dot she heard laughter and an uproar of steps up the road, getting closer.
With a frightened pull back she saw that not one enamored pilot had come, but a rambunctious horde of them. She watched them approach her, trembling. They spotted her, surrounded the gate - one could say it resembled a military maneuver -, took off their caps and began introducing themselves in a jovial clamor.
And, suddenly, after badly hearing their names, running her eyes through their drunken faces, through the young and sporty smile of the men, staring at them one by one, searching for her dream prince among them - she realized. Her enamored pilot did not exist; he had never been anything more than an illusion of her heart. There had never been a unique one; "he" had never existed. Perhaps even the blimp had never existed...
How embarrassing, my God! She had waved goodbye to so many people, betrayed by a deceiving image. Every day she had sent the sweetest, most heartfelt messages to so many different men, and in their smile, in the cordial words that they directed to their collective girlfriend, the little Tangerine-Girl, who was already an icon at the base - saw only mockery, insolent familiarity... Surely they must have thought that she too was one of those girls that go out with traveling sailors and soldiers, whomever they may be... surely they must have thought... oh my God!
Because of the slight darkness, or due to the fact that they don't pay much attention to psychological nuances, the young men did not notice the expression of sadness and fright that tormented the small round face of their little "amigo". And when one of them, bending over, offered her his arm, he was surprised to find her back away, timidly babbling:
"Excuse me... there's been a mistake... a mistake"
And the men understood even less when they saw her run away, slowly at first, then in a hurried rush. Nor did they anticipate that she had run away to lock herself in her room and, biting her pillow, cried the hottest and most bitter tears that she had in her eyes.
Never again did they see her in the orange grove. And although they continued to toss down presents, they saw that they stayed on the ground, forgotten - or at times they were picked up by the mischievous little boys on the farm.
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