Sunday morning
When I opened the curtain in my room early this morning, I noticed that it was a typical fall day, my favorite season in Rio de Janeiro. The sky was very clear, it was pleasantly warm and the streets were still quiet, with none of the hustle and bustle of Sundays at the beach. I looked down the street and saw cyclists passing by on the bike path, my neighbors walking towards the nearest dog park and the doormen chatting. It was a perfect Sunday!
I laid out a cross-stitched tablecloth on the kitchen table and put all the good stuff from the fridge on it: honey, jam, cheese, butter, a loaf of sandwich bread with the edges already half-dried...Humm. I stood there looking at those half-dried slices of bread, trying to muster up the energy to go to the bakery to buy a fresh loaf, but I was too lazy. This would mean having to shower, choose an outfit to go out and, I realized when I saw my image reflected in the microwave door, comb my hair. Too many tasks for a Sunday morning! Then I had a genius idea: make toast! Having solved the problem, I returned with redoubled energy to the task of making a very strong coffee and chopping the banana for my dog.
When I was finally ready to eat breakfast, the phone rang. It was a friend inviting me to go for a walk along the Cláudio Coutinho track, which runs around Pedra da Urca. While I pondered what answer I would give her, I lazily admired the cloudless blue sky. "Of course!", I replied without much encouragement, "Can we meet at the track gate in an hour and a half?". Gessi even tried to negotiate an earlier time, as she was anxious to get out of the house. A typical carioca, my friend loves going out. She only goes home to sleep. And how little sleep she gets... "I can't get there in less than an hour and a half, because I've only just woken up and I haven't even prepared my breakfast yet. After that, I still have to take Suki out to pee," I argued. I hung up the phone and sat down to eat my breakfast in peace. As I walked through the bedroom door to the shower, I saw my bed flooded with sunshine and couldn't resist. "Just half an hour more sleep and then I'll have a quick shower," I said to myself.
When I arrived at the meeting point just five minutes after the scheduled time, I found my friend all dressed up for an Olympic morning: leggings, running shoes, a sleeveless T-shirt, bands on her wrists and in her hair, a bottle of water around her waist, a towel on her shoulders and sunscreen perfume. I came with my old sneakers, shorts and T-shirt, and a strong desire to get back to my sunny bed. When we met up, she quickly ended the warm-up session and we headed for the track.
The track is 1.25 km long from the entrance gate to its end. It is about 10m above the sea, having been built on an embankment that borders the Sugar Loaf Mountain. When you reach the end, all you have to do is turn around and go back the way you came. Although it's simple, it offers a beautiful view of the sea and the small forest that surrounds the track. In addition, the place is full of monkeys that are a sensation among tourists and children, as well as being visited from time to time by toucans.
After 30 minutes of slow walking, we had only covered the first 500m, during which Gessi told me all about her aunt and niece, details of her weekly session with the psychoanalyst, a recipe for a quick cake and the latest gossip from work. Family gossip usually annoys me. But when it's someone else's family, my brain just wanders off to the rings of Pluto, oblivious. I fought it, but I realized that the yoga classes weren't doing much to keep me focused.
It was on one of the many occasions when I turned my face towards Urca beach to watch the oil tankers passing off the coast that I saw her. She was walking ahead of us, pushing a baby stroller, accompanied by a man who was probably her husband. Her posture was striking. At no point did she turn to look at her husband or the baby in the baby stroller in front of her. Her face made a semi-circular movement, stopping on the slope of Sugar Loaf Mountain to admire the climbers suspended from their ropes, then slowly moved across the blue sky that was beginning to be invaded by clouds and, finally, plunged into the sea to our right.
I spent a few minutes observing that semicircular orbit traversed by his gaze, which went back and forth along the same route, without ever passing the trolley. I was just beginning to understand what intrigued me about the scene when the couple were stopped by an acquaintance who was walking in the opposite direction. After exchanging hugs and kisses, the two young women stood there in the middle of the track chatting animatedly, while the boy took the opportunity to go and photograph the monkeys. At this point, I noticed that the mother had loosened her grip on the stroller and hadn't bothered to block the movement of its wheels, just on the most dangerous stretch, where the track has no side protection. As the asphalt lining the road slopes down towards the cliff to its right, the stroller slowly began to turn towards the sea. And it picked up speed...
At that very moment, I froze when I saw that the baby's mother had noticed the cart's movement, but had done nothing to stop it. Her friend and mine, unaware of what was going on, were annoyed to see that our attention wasn't on them. Just as I was about to scream and run off like a madwoman, she simply stretched out her arm and pulled the trolley towards herself, and the wheels quickly rolled back from the edge of the cliff. Their conversation continued quietly, as if nothing had happened.
With my heart pounding and disgusted by the scene and Gessi's endless stories, I imperiously decreed, "Let's go, I'm tired". My friend, rolling her eyes, accepted my decision. She had definitely chosen the wrong companion for her walk that Sunday morning.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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