vovó nina

I wrote earlier about Bisa, the elderly woman who lives next door to us on one side.

Our neighbor on the other side is also an older woman (though not nearly as old as Bisa). Unlike Bisa--who for some inexplicable reason incites R.'s fury--my middle son is completely in love with Nina.

When he wakes up in the morning, his first question is: when can I wake up Nina?

As soon as he gets permission, around nine (Nina likes to sleep late), he stations himself under her window and screams at the top of his lungs, Nina, open the door! Nina, come down right now!

(Nina speaks English, having lived in both London and Troy, New York for many years.)

And Nina loves R. She has grandchildren of her own, some in Salvador, two in the States, two in Africa, but because of strained relationships with her daughters, she rarely sees them.

She is lonely, but that's only part of it. She loves E. and Ju as well, but she it's a special connection that she has with R.

She says it's because their personalities are so similar.

Nina moved in just a couple of months after we did, and her house is still full of boxes. Every day she stops by with something to give us that she can't bear to throw out: a forty year old baby's hairbrush, an kid's ink set from the seventies with dessicated ink pads.

Talking with Nina is like walking through her house--her conversation, too, is cluttered with artifacts, some fascinating, some bewildering.

She knows everyone in Salvador, from the head of public health who was just indicted for embezzlement and having a man killed when he exposed the scandal, to João Gilberto and Caetano Veloso.

Her piano teacher was the legendary Luis Gonzaga.

Years ago, Nina experienced a nasty divorce. Once E. asked her, Hey, Nina, do you have a husband?

Nope, she said.

Why not? E. wondered.

He left me, she said, quite matter-of-fact.

Well, do you have a boyfriend? E. wanted to know.

Nina found this exchange hilarious.

When R. is at his most ornery, and difficult for me to handle, he spends some time at Nina's house, and it calms him down. He likes to lie on her bed and watch cartoons. He likes to sit in her kitchen and keep her company and eat cornflakes.

(We've asked Nina repeatedly not to feed him anything except fruits and vegetables, because then he won't eat his meals, but I guess in her mind cornflakes count as a vegetable.)

Initially I felt kind of weird about him calling her Vovó, as though she could somehow replace his grandparents.

But, while other people sometimes refer to her as Vovó Nina, R. just calls her Nina. And Dan pointed out to me that she really isn't so much like a grandmother, but more of a friend who just happens to be sixty-odd years older than him.