Júlio offered me a chair and told me to stay calm before saying what he had to. I was silent as he hung the x-rays on the view box.
“See this here? This shadowing between your kidney and your intestine?”
I nodded.
“I can’t say if it’s malignant or benign, but it doesn’t look good. See the irregular margins here? We’re going to have to open you up, Ciro. ASAP. I’ve already spoken to Cézar Fialho, he’s very experienced in this kind of surgery. The team’s available tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow?”
“That’s right, Ciro, tomorrow. We’ve got to get it out of you as quickly as possible.”
“Then what?” I asked.
“Then chemo and radiation. It’s a long road, Ciro, but that’s for later. First, surgery.”
“Is it risky?”
“Yes. We’ll have to take out a large section to be on the safe side.”
“How long do I have?”
“Let’s not think about that now,” he replied.
I left his office and wandered aimlessly for a good hour, my feet barely touching the sidewalk. My last time in Copacabana. Maciste’s flexed biceps on the neon outside the gym, Roxy Cinema, Hotel Lido, Copacabana Palace, and the beach promenade. I don’t remember how I got home. The morning newspaper was still on the bed, the wet towel, the breakfast scraps, remnants of a life that was no longer mine. I cleaned up the mess and did the dishes as if washing away the vestiges of a former tenant. I packed a small bag for the hospital, went to the window, lit a cigarette, and leaned out to see the sliver of ocean. I should go for a swim, I thought, my last swim. But I wasn’t up to it—not anymore. The ocean, never again. When was the last time? At Arpoador, last Thursday, before the persistent pain sent me off on a merry-go-round of doctors and clinical exams. Cold water, blue sky, hot sun, the last sun.
Júlio had explained that I shouldn’t be alone, I’d need someone there with me at the hospital. But my son was too young, my dad was dead, my mother was too frail to take the news, and I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I thought of Álvaro. He was always depressed, it might do him good to know that I was worse off. I arranged to meet him for coffee. I insisted that it be at lunchtime, as I had something to tell him. Already regretting it, I placed the phone on the hook. Álvaro was singularly selfish, mean, and cowardly. He’d never do anything for me, much less sleep on a tiny sofa beside someone who was terminally ill. I needed Ruth.
I don’t know why I did what I did. It was instinct, my dick, my head, the head of my dick. I don’t know. But the moment Júlio handed down my sentence, I realized that I’d begun to die way back at Irene’s cousin’s party, when I locked eyes with Ruth and we were sucked into the maelstrom.
I dialed the old number, the sequence I knew by heart. I hadn’t dared dial it for four years. Raquel answered. I hung up. I went to meet Álvaro. The restaurant was empty, lunch service almost over. I sat at a table by the window and waited. While I was there I said goodbye to the beach and the salt air. The last time I set eyes on the sea. Álvaro arrived shortly afterward. He was strapped for time; it was March, and tax returns were due in. He said he had left a pile of declarations waiting for him at the office and complained about his meager salary.
“So many people depend on me,” he argued. “They should pay me better. What if I decide to take revenge one day?”
I feigned amusement. I remembered the form that, with everything else going on, I’d forgotten in a drawer. What if I make it out alive? I thought. I’ll get caught in an audit. Better to die in the hospital. I started the conversation there, with taxes, which was the only reality he cared about:
“I won’t be able to turn mine in this year.”
He looked at me in shock, as if tax returns were something sacred.
“I’ve been too busy this last month.”
“The problem is that you all leave it till the last minute,” he interrupted glibly. “You want a hand? Is that why you called me?”
“No, Álvaro. I’m not going to declare my earnings because I don’t know if I’ll be here tomorrow.”
He stared at me, confused.
“They’ve found a tumor and I’m going under the knife to have the thing removed. I go in today and I don’t have anyone to stay with me at the hospital.”
I stopped there, unable to ask if he’d come with me. Álvaro’s panic was almost obscene. He leaned back from the table as if he was afraid of catching it. Cancer isn’t contagious, asshole. He glanced from side to side, wanting to get the hell out of there, barely able to disguise his discomfort.
“Don’t you think you should get a second opinion?”
“There isn’t time, Álvaro. I’ve come to say goodbye,” I lied. “I haven’t told anyone, you’re the first.”
He didn’t look remotely flattered. He preferred not to know.
“And did they say what caused it? Cigarettes, alcohol, is there a family history?” he insisted, sizing up his own risks, concerned with himself, as we all are.
“There’s no logic to it, it’s Russian roulette. I got the chamber with the bullet in it.”
The coffee came and we waited for the waiter to leave.
“Are you going to tell Ruth?”
“No,” I replied.
An uncomfortable silence followed by Álvaro’s “Gotta go” ended the encounter.
“Of course, I don’t want to keep you.”
“It’s no hassle, Ciro, really. It’s just that I didn’t know. You should have told me, I’d have canceled everything, I’d have arranged something.”
Liar. He was relieved to have an excuse to get away.
“I’ll come see you, are you allowed visitors? Which hospital is it?”
That was the last time I saw Álvaro. He never showed up. Right after paying for coffee—he insisted on paying—he put a hand on my shoulder, gave me an awkward hug, and apologized for the question he wanted to ask.
“Can I?”
“I hope so.”
“Do you think it was punishment?”
Álvaro came across as an idiot, but he was deep, and tragic. I felt an unconditional love for him. I had no doubt it was punishment. And it comforted me, it gave order to the confusing sequence of chance events that had brought me there.
“If it isn’t punishment, Álvaro, God doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
I was sorry he wasn’t coming with me. That afternoon, on my way to the hospital, I climbed the sloping streets of Santa Teresa for the last time and saw the wet forest, Rio from up high.
It’s been three months.
They cut out a third of my liver, three feet of intestine, my pancreas, and my gallbladder, all at one go. Then they stitched me back up and stuck me in this bed here. Júlio feigns optimism and I pretend to trust him. I haven’t seen Fialho since just after the operation. I lie, he pops his head in from time to time, on his way to another bloodbath. Fialho is disgustingly vain. He likes to show CT scans of his victim’s viscera while describing the torture he inflicts in detail. He should be locked away. He is self-important, a snob, Arian—a deplorable, inhumane being. He disappeared when the oncologists took over. Fialho can’t handle the competition, he has an inferiority complex. He knows he’s just a glorified plumber. I survived Fialho and now Júlio is free to kill me with radiation.
You go into the hospital with one illness and there you contract numerous others that are far worse—opportunistic, chronic, agonizing. I fell victim to fungi, viruses, bacteria, amoebas, germs—the whole kit and caboodle. Cystitis made me pee blood. They stuck a probe in my dick, a catheter in my chest, and a drainage tube in my lungs. My hair’s fallen out and I haven’t eaten for a week. I’m very weak. I drag my feet down the corridor—they call it exercise. I need help to go to the bathroom and I’m always clutching my IV pole. The pole, my faithful lover. A clothesline of plastic bags filling me with poison. Antifungals, antibiotics, antivirals, anti, anti, anti, no pros.
I told Júlio that I didn’t have anyone who could stay with me and he hired a companion service. I never knew what it was to pay for company, now I do. There are three of them who take turns. Eneida, Gisa, and Maria Clara. Eneida is a good-humored older woman who knows how to be tough on desperate days. Gisa is distant, I don’t care for her, and Maria Clara has just started, replacing Lívia, who is pregnant and can’t be in a hospital environment anymore. I liked Lívia.
I don’t know anything about Maria Clara; we haven’t had time to get to know each other. She’s young, pretty, and must have a boyfriend. I’ve been spaced out. The fungus is in my lungs, the cystitis has reached my kidneys, and I still have dozens of sessions of chemo to go. They upped my morphine dosage this week. Júlio didn’t tell me anything, and he didn’t need to, because I know when I’m high. And hurting. Which is why I’m down, because I’m hurting. Sílvio would like that. I anxiously await my next dose and exaggerate what I’m feeling, to see if they’ll double it. Nothing more terrifying than a whole day of being bedridden ahead of you, followed by a night of poor sleep. God bless morphine, relief for the pain and the idling hours.
Why does it take so long? I want to switch off, forget, get out of here.
* * *
I woke up beside Ruth; it was a day like every other. But I woke up before her, which wasn’t normal. I just lay there, looking at her. There wasn’t a square inch of that woman that I didn’t know. I had visited every crease and orifice of her. For so many years we had explored new territories in an infinite succession of first times. The elevator was just the beginning of it all. When we became mature lovers, married and uninhibited, the desire to start a family gave us a second wind. We fucked solemnly, with emotion. And her breasts full of milk, and the joy of having made someone who was half-her, half-me, it all washed over us like a warm wave for so many years. But that day, staring at her in bed, I realized there was nothing left to be discovered. She still looked good, it had nothing to do with appearance. I was surprised to discover that nothing in me, not a single hair or pore, not one, miserable cell, longed for her in the slightest. Ruth opened her eyes and was surprised to see me awake. She smiled. I got up to start the day.
“Is something wrong?”
“Nope.”
“I know you.”
That was the problem with Ruth—we knew each other too well.
After work I called Neto and we met at Amarelinho. Sílvio had just separated and Álvaro was still with Irene, who was Ruth’s confidant, and I didn’t want anything to get back to Ruth.
“Do you still like having sex with Célia?” I asked.
Neto was surprised at the bluntness of the question, laughed, thought about it, then replied sincerely.
“I don’t think about it, I guess so, I don’t know. This is my life, I don’t have any other.”
“But don’t you miss the unknown, Neto? The chase? The danger? The anonymous sex? Uncertainty about the next time?”
He explained that he felt a familiar affection for Célia, he liked the tidy house, seeing his kids leave for school, and having someone to sleep beside.
“The sex is good. The sex is still good. It’s a little methodical, it’s true, mechanical, but it always has been. Célia’s very conventional. It’s the same ritual, which works for both of us: we come together, I know how to wait for her, I think I’m satisfied. I must be, because I don’t think about it.”
The sickness was mine. I suspected that the romantic fury that devoured me in the elevator had come to collect now, so many years later. I wouldn’t be able to survive with Neto’s resignation.
I opened the door of the apartment. I wasn’t myself, I was someone else. She noticed and asked if everything was okay. I told her that I was okay, that I’d already said I was okay, and that what didn’t make me okay was the fact that she wanted to know if I was okay. I went into the bathroom, slammed the door, and took a long shower. When I came out, Ruth was in the living room watching TV. João was in bed. I headed for the bedroom, climbed under the sheets, turned out the light, and rolled over, annoyed at myself. Why had I done that?
I didn’t dream. I woke up with her beside me, staring at the ceiling.
“I was waiting for you to wake up,” she said.
A heavy shroud had descended over us, as unexpected and intense as our previous love, but different, bleak, devastating. I sat up with my back to her, thought about saying something, but didn’t. I went to brush my teeth. She waited for me to come back and demanded an explanation.
“It’s nothing, Ruth.”
“How is it nothing, Ciro? Is it something I did?”
“No, you didn’t do anything.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The problem, Ruth, is our marriage.”
She paled as if she’d received news of a death. If we stayed there wallowing, it’d be worse—it was worse already. The awkwardness of the previous day had yielded fruit: phrases, fights, and questioning. The blood flow had to be stanched.
“I’m going to work, Ruth, and I think you should do the same. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment downtown, we can talk tonight.”
She didn’t go to work.
I saw clients, resolved some problems at the district court, dusk came, night fell. I headed into the streets as if there was no one. What if that was my life? Ten years after the hurricane I was becoming myself again, as I had always been, before being swallowed by her. I wandered down Rua do Ouvidor, Cinelândia Square, and hailed a cab when I was almost at Aterro do Flamengo Park. Princesa Isabel, I said. I got out at Frank’s Bar. I sat on a sofa at the back. Two naked girls were gyrating and bending over on the stage. I ordered a whiskey and just let myself be. I was free. One girl asked if she could sit with me, but I wanted to be by myself, so she turned and went to a table by the stage, where a guy with a beard was drinking Campari. The strippers finished their number and a couple came on holding a faded sheet. They were married—it was obvious they were married, you could see it in the passive way they spread out the sheet and lay down on the stage. It was a sad scene. He wasn’t all that into it, which meant he had to squeeze the base of his dick to keep it erect. She wasn’t pretty and had a small, banal body, like so many others. It must have been the umpteenth time they’d fucked that day. And although they were being paid to have sex, their faces were expressionless, bored, cold. Intimacy destroys the libido, I was certain. That was Ruth and I. The two of us. What marriage had done to us. There’s no going back, I thought. I left a tip on the table, stood, and exited the club feeling restless. Thank God for car exhaust. I hurried to a public phone and called Sílvio. We arranged to meet at Antonio’s Bar. I got there first. The same old rowdy mob. Free men, as I wanted to be again. One, red from too much malt, was euphorically narrating how Tarso de Castro had hit on Candice Bergen. Where have I been all these years? I thought. Everyone screwing everyone else, and here I am in this dead-end fidelity.
Sílvio arrived in high spirits. He was meeting someone later. He was radiant, as I hadn’t seen him in a long time.
“’Sup, Ciro?”
“You tell me… How’s single life treating you?”
“If it gets any better, it’ll spoil it.”
And he chortled as he waved the head waiter over.
“A Black Label, please. So how’s that storybook romance of yours? Make me jealous.”
“It’s fine,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about Ruth.
“Your life’s so perfect, Ciro, that sometimes I want to spit in your face.”
Sílvio gave a brotherly laugh, shaking the ice in his glass, then took a sip and changed tone. He leaned over the table and signaled for me to do the same.
“If I tell you something, promise you won’t tell anyone?”
I promised. Sílvio gave a naughty smile.
“I’m counting on you, man, you promised! It’s a big deal. Old Sílvio here is enjoying springtime, Ciro. I survived the harsh winter. After putting up with the mother-in-law’s mug, Norma’s prayers, those annoying kids, the smell of garlic at breakfast, I’m myself again, Ciro. If I’d stayed in that marriage, Ciro, I’d have become a eunuch; my dick would’ve shrunk, withered into a raisin. Neto can take it ’cause he’s got more than he needs, but I can’t afford to waste any. You’re lucky, you married Ruth, but I got sick of Norma in a month. I stuck around because she was still in working condition, but we’ve got zip in common. And, now, here’s the secret. You listening?”
“I’m listening.”
“The shit hit the fan because a snob from Ribeirão squealed to Norma’s mother that I was having an affair with a hippie from Bauru. Know who the hippie from Bauru is, Ciro?”
“No, Sílvio, I don’t know who the hippie from Bauru is.”
“Secret?”
“Secret.”
“Don’t you want to guess?”
“No.”
“It’s Suzana.”
“Suzana who?”
“What do you mean, ‘Suzana who?’”
“The Suzana with the joint. Ribeiro’s Suzana, for fuck’s sake!”
The revelation came as no surprise. From Sílvio, you could expect anything, and from that girl, nothing less. But the bit about the eunuch really got to me. A vision of castration.
“It’s her that I’m going to meet. Her and a friend of hers, Brites.”
And he made a repugnant, snakelike movement with his tongue to indicate that he was sleeping with both of them. I’d always found Sílvio’s way of talking about sex disgusting. Whenever he drank, he’d get all handsy with everyone, very suspicious. My idea of happiness was different to his. Certainly more conservative. I never humiliated my friends for being what I was. I was born ridiculously good-looking, and a nice guy—women shook with anticipation, without any effort on my part. I’d been locked in a stable for ten years, but not anymore. Sílvio was right.
“To springtime!” we toasted.
We left Antonio’s Bar tipsy and went on foot to the restaurant where Suzana was having seafood with Brites.
“Mussels…” he said slyly, opening an imaginary shell and repeating the reptile tongue.
“I get it, Sílvio.”
“From there, they’re going to a party that some theater folk are throwing. You’re not going home tonight, Ciro, I forbid you. Tomorrow, have Ruth call me and I’ll tell her why a stud like you has to be shared with the rest of humanity.”
“Tell her, Sílvio, you tell her that.”
We met Suzana and Brites at the restaurant and went to an old mansion in Santa Teresa.
The world had changed a lot since the last time I’d been out. The androgyny was alarming. Creatures both male and female. Everyone feeling up anyone within reach. I turned down the quaalude that Sílvio offered me; I thought it best to stay sober. As soon as we got there, two queers who made their living sewing fanny packs came over with languid eyes, asking if there was more where I came from. I laughed and they gave little squeals. A flock of stocky girlfriends heard the call and crowded around to admire me with endlessly wandering hands. Sílvio came to my rescue and shooed them away, saying I needed to breathe. We headed to the dance floor, where they were playing Rita Lee. I couldn’t keep up. I watched from a corner. I thought about Ruth, at home, crazy without me. Standing near the railing of the run-down mansion in Santa Teresa, I thought about going home, begging Ruth’s forgiveness, and forgetting that fateful morning on which I’d woken up before her. Sílvio reappeared with vodka.
“Having fun, Ciro?”
“Trying. I left Ruth, Sílvio, I left her at home and slammed the door behind me. I can’t go home.”
His eyes bulged.
“Left her for real? Or just kind of?”
“No, I don’t think so, not yet. I don’t know.”
“My friend, ‘I don’t know’ is the most exhausting phase of any separation, the rest comes naturally. I’m confused, I thought you and Ruth were immune to temptation. Think about it, Ciro, there’ll be women throwing themselves at you,” he exclaimed prophetically, “but can you handle seeing Ruth single? Think about it. Are you going to hand it all to someone else on a platter? Watch out for Ribeiro!”
“What about Ribeiro?”
“It’s just a hunch, but I’m pretty sure Ribeiro’s always had the hots for your wife,” he said as he dragged me towards the door. “But let’s not waste this crisis of yours!”
Suzana and Brites appeared out of nowhere and we went into the stuffy interior. The air of the dimly lit house smelled of marijuana. Some people were groping one another on the sofa, passing a joint from mouth to mouth. My head was spinning from Sílvio’s revelation. Ribeiro wanted to fuck Ruth. Ribeiro was going to fuck Ruth, Ribeiro could have been fucking Ruth at that very moment, while I was wandering around a hippie party. We went around the line for the bathroom and climbed a flight of stairs packed with men and women covered in glitter. On the second floor was a short corridor with several doors at the end.
“Pick one,” said Sílvio.
“What?”
“Whaddya mean, ‘what’? Pick a door, for fuck’s sake. Today’s the day, Ciro!”
Suzana and Brites laughed knowingly. I chose the one in the middle, for the sake of it, focused on my jealousy of Ruth. Suzana and Brites turned the door handle and Sílvio, before going in, gave me a naughty little wave.
“See you soon,” he said.
We went in. Pitch black, moans, and the shock of the air-conditioning. Someone grabbed my balls, a tongue darted into my ear, and an insistent hand tried to pull my pants down. I repelled, as best I could, a mustache that was trying to violate my mouth. I was disgusted by the funky smell of the room, the tantric incense, the absence of male and female, of Ruth. I fought my way out of the hungry tentacles and twisted the hand that insisted on feeling me up. Then I bolted down the hill to the streetcar line and went home in a cab that was falling to pieces. It felt like we’d never get there. I raced upstairs, almost bowled the door down, and sped down the corridor calling her name. The bedroom. Ruth standing there.
“My name’s Ciro,” I said. “I’m a lawyer, I’m married, I have a son, and no one is going to take you away from me.”
And I pulled her to me like I did the first time. It’s over, I thought. It’s over. Forgive me, Ruth. It won’t happen again.
She was stupid and short. Mediocre, servile, and loose. She wasn’t worth a hair on Ruth’s head. The office Christmas bash was a riot; I got smashed, I don’t remember much. Cinira came at me hungrily and I was amused by that clumsy little pig undoing my belt and calling me sir. It had nothing to do with love, it was just a bit of fun. I laughed as she battled her way out of her tight clothing. She got stuck in her Lastex top and I got her out with a series of jolts. We exchanged a few wet kisses with her head still stuck in the sleeve and finally had a breather when we pulled the last tuft of hair out of the collar button. When I looked at her, short, naked, and anxious with excitement, I grabbed that barrel body and finished in half a second. Shitty drunk sex, which cost me an entire night of laments and accusations. I said that Cinira was no one, it was the booze, a slip-up, it had nothing to do with us, it wouldn’t happen again, but it made no difference. Ruth seemed about to lose it again, and I couldn’t take it. She should have had more dignity, showed some self-respect, had some revenge sex, gone to Ribeiro. But no, she preferred to play the victim, a pain in the ass.
“Ruth,” I said, “you’re a pain in the asssssss!”
And I rolled over, I needed to sleep. I ended up catching about two hours of shut-eye on the sofa in the study and woke up with a stiff neck. I was still annoyed at her. I hoisted myself up, got a change of clothes, and left without saying where I was going. I didn’t show up for Christmas or New Year’s Eve.
Ruth was admitted to the clinic on the morning of January 1.
Sílvio took me in. I spent New Year’s Eve of 1980 with him, Suzana and Brites. They introduced me to Marta and, at midnight, we jumped seven waves at Leme Beach. She was dead set on having sex with me in the water. It was a superstition of hers, and I did as she wished. At least I’ve made one woman happy, I thought. Then we all went back to Glória. I woke up with a hangover, feeling guilty about what I’d done. Later in the afternoon I stopped by the apartment, where the maid told me that João was with his grandparents and Ruth had gone to the hospital with her sister.
Raquel kicked me out. Ruth was sedated. I waited in reception, lost, then went back upstairs and convinced my sister-in-law to leave. Ruth didn’t wake up until the next morning, thirsty. When she saw me, she burst into tears. I embraced her, lay down beside her, and swore I’d never do it again. She fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. When we went home, I made a point of carrying her into the bedroom in my arms. We loved one another like newlyweds. Cinira… no way, Cinira… Ruth was crazy to compare herself to that nitwit from the office.
In May, the month of brides, I took on a land expropriation case in Ipanema. Real estate speculators had moved through the neighborhood like a swarm of bees. The owner of a large developer had forced a construction site to shut down on Rua Nascimento Silva. City Hall had found one of the documents of the thirty-by-fifty-yard lot to be fraudulent. I sorted out the problem and the truck driver went back to tormenting the district. As a way of saying thanks, I was invited to a dinner. I didn’t take Ruth. I told her it was a work thing, and it was. The pretentious apartment, with a view of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, was very small and there was no airflow. Low ceilings, two-by-two-meter bedrooms, aluminum window frames, tinted glass, a windowless guest toilet, and granite counters in the kitchen. The new standard of living that those people were so proud of. Each dovecote built was given the name of a famous European: Vivaldi, Monet, Rimbaud. This one was called Voltaire. Milena came to the door with her husband to greet me. She was gorgeous. I was introduced to the crème de la crème of the real estate world—fat, rich men with Rolexes crammed onto the leather upholstery in the lounge room. I listened to praise, feigned modesty, collected contacts. On the Monday, the secretary told me that Milena, the developer’s wife, had an appointment for Tuesday.
“Did she say what it was about?”
“No, she didn’t.”
I pulled the chair out for her, walked around the desk, and sat down to hear her. Milena was even more beautiful by the light of day.
“I want to leave my husband,” she told me. “Do you think it’ll be hard?”
I was so taken aback that I returned the question.
“Hard in what sense?”
“Do you think it’s risky to ask for a divorce?”
“I guess so. Your husband’s very successful, it mustn’t be easy to give up a marriage like that.”
“He speaks very highly of you.”
What was that all about? I tried to maintain my composure.
“Milena… May I call you Milena?”
She nodded.
“I have represented your husband; I rarely work in family law, and only when there’s real estate caught up in a dispute. It wouldn’t be ethical, much less honest, to accept…”
“You don’t understand. I’m not asking for your professional help.”
And she gave me a serious look. It took me a good minute to process. It was a formal, grown-up come-on. Milena was much more forward than me. With God as my witness, we hadn’t even exchanged two sentences at that dinner party. We ignored each other entirely, and I spent the evening listening to Rio’s real estate moguls’ plans to destroy the city. I wasn’t looking, but she had come, falling from the sky like a ripe mango. How could I say no? A woman like that asking me to free her from the carnivorous brute she was married to, from the banquets with engineers, the trips to Disneyland. Why didn’t Ruth do the same with Ribeiro? Marriage shouldn’t kill one’s sense of adventure. This was happening to me, just me, and Ruth was free to have what was hers. Fuck “this or that”! I wanted this and that. I dialed Sílvio’s number at the bank without taking my eyes off her. I asked for the key to the pad in Glória, and he agreed immediately. Sílvio really had your back at times like that. I jotted down the address and time, 12:15 p.m., on the office letterhead.
“I might be able to help,” I said, and handed her the paper.
Milena put it in her handbag, stood, and left.
Milena and I would meet at lunchtime, then I’d wolf down a sandwich and return to reality. We maintained our routines with our spouses. Milena was a powerhouse, creative, chic. She gave me a designer suit so I could fuck her in character. If it weren’t for Ruth, I’d have married her. I lie, I wouldn’t have done that. Milena was shot at five times by her husband in Búzios, seven months after our affair. Two bullets went through her right thigh and the others buried themselves in the wall of the colonial-style house he’d built for her on Ferradura Beach. I didn’t know it, but Milena had a string of colorful stories to her name. Right after our affair, she had a torrid romance with her husband’s business partner. She hated his wife. We were still together when Milena called the poor man to say that she was head over heels in love with him. He fell—how could he not? Milena arranged to spend the weekend with him at the Maksoud Plaza, but demanded that he bring the cockatoo. The cockatoo? Yes, the cockatoo. It was a whim of hers. He would have to take the pet cockatoo, which he and his wife kept in an enormous cage in the living room, to São Paulo. He laughed at the absurdity of it and tried to negotiate, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. That Friday afternoon, he headed to the airport with the bird crammed into a travel carrier for cats, only to be caught by his wife with the rare bird and Milena at the departure gate. Milena had found a way to make sure his wife figured it out, and the cockatoo was proof of his submission. Milena’s husband got wind of her betrayal and lost it. There were precedents; Milena had never been easy. But attacking his partner, his brother, was unacceptable. A man wouldn’t have it. Blind with jealousy, he shoved a revolver in his pocket, drove to Ferradura, and unloaded the cartridges into Milena.
Our affair ended well before all that, but no less disastrously. Ruth didn’t suspect a thing. I was present, a good companion, and I was happy, really happy. One day I forgot that I’d arranged to go with her to a dentist in downtown Rio, as João was getting braces. I wasn’t at the office when she went to pick me up. I’d lost track of the time; Milena liked to make me late. My slip set off alarm bells in Ruth’s head. She became depressed and took the whole household down the hole with her. Milena became my sun. I was obsessed with her. One day, Ruth, in a fit of madness, decided to stake out my office. I left on my own and took a taxi to Glória, where Milena was waiting for me. Ruth followed me and found a way to get into the building. I don’t know if I forgot to lock the door, or if it was Milena—I don’t know; I just remember Ruth’s face materializing in the middle of the room, screeching at me like a parrot with its hackles up. The insults were so many that I switched off, went numb. I got up from the bed, pulled on my slacks and shirt, grabbed my things, and headed for the elevator. She followed, bellowing in my ear. I took the elevator down to the sound of her roaring. The elevator of times past, her formerly velvety voice, our last time as strangers. How could the world spin around so quickly?
The noise of the street was respite for the senses. The strident voice had stayed behind. I caught a cab, it was perfectly normal, sunny afternoon, Rio de Janeiro, the park, the tunnel, Copacabana, no drama, I actually convinced myself of it. I showered, turned on the TV, and had a snack. Then she arrived, transfigured. I denied it, I denied everything, I denied any knowledge of it, what Ruth was telling me was absurd. I reaffirmed that I’d been home the whole time and, in a mixture of mischievousness, depravity, and lack of character, or something like that, I insinuated that perhaps she was losing her mind. Ruth bought the idea, stopped, sat at the dining table, and asked for a glass of water. Her hands shook as she lifted it to her mouth. Her gaze became blank, empty, her movements slowed, as if she might shatter. Ruth stood, leaning on the furniture, headed for the bedroom, and lay down in her clothes. She lay there all night in silence, pupils fixed on the light. She didn’t eat the next day, didn’t get up, didn’t shower, didn’t move. On the third day, I called the doctor and he thought it best to have her hospitalized. I returned alone, João came home from school, we had dinner, he asked when his mother would be back, and I said I didn’t know. She was released a month later, but it was different from the first time. She was listless, confused, like a ghost of herself. There was no reconciliation, we didn’t celebrate anything. The atmosphere was so bleak, so heavy, that no fun was to be had at home or anywhere else. I said goodbye to Milena. She already had her sights set on Camargo. Besides, she had been horrified by Ruth’s tantrum. Milena wasn’t sad it was over. She looked down on my married life. Mine and everyone else’s.
I endured Ruth’s convalescence for months, until the itch came back to bother me. Ruth stopped being a woman, stopped looking after herself, and dropped all decorum in my presence. We barely spoke. I waited for it to pass, unsure what was expected of me. Only later did I understand. Ruth was waiting for me to cheat again, to step out of line—only then would she regain her sanity. There was nothing frail about her—it was a trap.
It didn’t take me long to fall. It’s easier for women not to think about sex than it is for men, for me. After three months of feeling guilty about the state Ruth was in, I started going out with the boys and was soon surrounded by women. I didn’t want any of them and I wanted them all. Always for the first time. Three times with the same one was rare. And that’s how I had Bete, Marga, Clara, Ana, Sônia, Cláudia, Andrea Marques, Andrea Souza, Maria João, Claude, Cristine, Gabriela, Amora, Paula, Lu, Paula Saldanha, Ana Cristina and Cristina; Roberta, on the fire escape, Mirela from the pharmacy, Gorete from the beach, Rita and Brenda, from New Jersey; Cora in Recife, Úrsula from Paraná, Brígida from 306; Marina, Ana Luísa and Míriam… Biba and Marcela. Marcela. I read Machado de Assis to her: “Marcela loved me for fifteen months and eleven contos.” She laughed and didn’t understand a thing. And there was no time to explain, because then Adriana came on the scene, and then Celina, and then Simone, Aline, Mônica, and Luciana. I don’t know who came before and who came after, all I remember is the miracle of multiplication of breasts.
I rarely spent the night at home. I’d stop by to get my mail, have a bite to eat, and see João. Ruth stopped talking to me. She’d just give me a distant look, like a judge, haughty in her certainty that I was worthless.
That was when I met Lílian. Lílian was a professor of literature at the Pontifical Catholic University. It was the most serious affair I had. I missed having a decent conversation with a decent woman. Something besides fornication and the vote of silence that Ruth had imposed on me. Lílian was cultured, unlike the others, and a dedicated lover. I started sleeping at her place regularly. I’d go home to drop off my laundry and leave quickly, increasingly hurt by Ruth. I was responsible for the horror we were going through, but she had taken the reins and pointed the cart at the gorge. She ruled out any possibility of love, cut me out of her life, and closed up like an oyster. Ruth was frighteningly passive. She didn’t want to be mine anymore, nor would she let go of me. She wanted me to leave her. The ultimate proof of my inability to love.
If that’s the way it’s going to be, I thought, then so be it. I found a place to live, a place where I could be with Lílian, with my records, my books. A small penthouse in Santa Clara became available. A work colleague had gotten married and wanted out of the rental contract. I took it. I didn’t tell Ruth. Bit by bit, I started taking the few things I had the right to: a few childhood belongings, my books from university, my Grappelli, João Gilberto, Beatles, and Cat Stevens LPs.
Lílian helped me arrange everything, and chose the new oven—she liked cooking. One day, I realized we were heading for a stable relationship. It was a sunny Sunday, after the beach. We showered, had sex, I put the TV on to watch the game, and sat down for lunch. Lílian appeared from the kitchen with a roasted chicken fresh out of the oven, placed it on the neatly arranged table, served me, served herself, and began to chew. I froze. I didn’t touch the food, I didn’t dare; I could never betray Ruth like that. Lílian moved on to dessert without noticing my irritation. When she got up to make coffee, I held her arm and said it wasn’t necessary. She looked at me in surprise.
“I don’t want to start all over again, Lílian. I just left my family and here I am already, with you making coffee for me. You won’t like getting to know me. I killed my wife. Maybe you’re tougher than her, but if that’s the case, you’re not the one for me. I love Ruth’s sick love for me, and I’d love you if you felt the same. But something tells me that if you were in Ruth’s shoes, you’d have sent me on my way. So I’m sending you on your way. I’m not falling into the trap of roasted chicken, the illusion of having a better half, a soul mate, all that nonsense people make up to bring us to ruin. The sex will get worse, then the bad moods will start, the boredom, the aggression, the fights. Better to stop here.”
Lílian picked up her handbag and gazed at me in shock. She was still too young to see how dark it was in the well, but she took my warning seriously and kept her distance. I never saw her again. Alone, in the living room of my apartment in Santa Clara, with Lílian’s roasted chicken staring at me from the baking dish, I realized that death was lurking everywhere. The Gordian knot of the original tumor, on the right side of the pancreas, began to unravel, I am sure, at that exact moment, and divided into a thousand rotten cells that spread through my organs and had a field day.
I went on a rampage.
Regarding João, I dealt with Raquel, or the lawyers. I paid child support, always on time. Ruth ceased to exist, which in a way was a relief. I dreamed about her. We’d talk, fuck, fight. It was good, the only way to ease the pain of missing her. On several occasions I wanted to call her to say we’d spent the night together, but I didn’t.
I preferred Sílvio’s company. I frequented the wildest clubs, snorted more than I should have, and did my best at those insipid sex parties. When Sílvio told me he was leaving for the South, I thought a break would be good. His dream was to see us all together in an orgy, a brotherly bacchanal. He talked about it a lot with me. He claimed it would cure Álvaro of his impotence, Neto of his monogamy, and Ribeiro of his childishness. Sílvio had a serious theory about it. But things didn’t work out the way he’d planned. You don’t always get what you want. I think he was pissed off that I’d taken the Argentinean into the bedroom; he brought it up on the phone the next day. He was frustrated. Neto and Ribeiro had let the opportunity slip, and Álvaro hadn’t been able to get it up, as usual, instead falling asleep in the arms of his Nubian beauty. It was an anticlimax, he complained, before taking off forever. A year later, more or less, I felt a sharp pain on the right side of my abdomen. My skin turned the color of yellow piss, my piss turned black, and they treated me as if it was hepatitis—but it was much worse. Now I’m here.
What time is it? It’s dark out. I must have fallen asleep. Have they already shot me up? No doubt they have. Where’s my next dose? I want to go back to where I was.
There’s someone in the room.
The lack of privacy in hospital is abusive. The doors have no locks. Nurses, cleaners, doctors, anyone can come in whenever they please. They talk in loud voices, fiddle with everything. They clean the floor, change catheters, poke, prod, perforate—it’s a nightmare. Lethargy stops me from asking who it is. I don’t have the strength, I’m pure thought. It’s a woman. New. It’s not Eneida. No. It’s not Eneida. It’s not Gisa. Who is it? Who is it? I try to make an audible sound, but my lips don’t move. She checks my veins, takes my temperature, injects poison into the drip. My hand slips through the bars of the bed and comes to rest on her hip. It’s firm, like Ruth’s.
“What day is it?”
“Friday,” she says.
“Date?”
“The forth of August,” she says.
“What year?”
“Nineteen ninety.”
A fine date, I thought.
“Have I been asleep for long?”
“A week,” she says.
A week. A week that I didn’t see pass. A blessing. If I were in prison, I’d report them all for torture. In prison, I’d do my time and get out alive. Not the case here. Nope, not my case. I’m at the end of the row, tied to the electric chair, standing in front of a firing squad.
“Give me another dose.”
“You’re not due for one for another three hours.”
Three hours… an eternity.
“Hey, come closer,” I say, pressing my hand against her backside as best I can, trying to bring her closer.
“Mr. Ciro…” she says. “What?”
“Come closer,” I insist.
She obeys. I run my fingers up her waist.
“Mr. Ciro…” she repeats.
“Climb on top of me,” I plead.
She tries to take my hand off her breast, but I latch on and don’t let go.
“What are you afraid of? I’m harmless, can’t you see? What harm could it do? Don’t deny a dying man his last wish.”
She glances at the door, afraid someone will come in. I pull her to me. The face in focus comes with a name, Maria Clara.
“Maria Clara. Your friend didn’t lie,” I say.“You’re really beautiful, Maria Clara.”
Her chest heaves under my fingers.
“Come on,” I repeat, “sit on me. Be a saint, it’s my mercy shot.”
“Mr. Ciro… let me go.”
“No, you let me go. Let me go. Let me. Let…”
She meets my gaze, thinking about something, doesn’t say what, then checks the door once again and, without a word, lowers the side rail, pulls the step stool over to the bed, and sits down beside me. I laugh thankfully. She smells nice. I wait for her to continue, but no, she stops where she is.
“Is that all?” I ask.
She blushes.
“Mr. Ciro… please.”
“Climb on. I’ll call you by another name, it won’t be you.”
“No, Mr. Ciro, for Heaven’s sake.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“But you want to get married. So you pretend I’m him and I’ll pretend you’re my wife. What harm could it do?”
“It isn’t right,” she murmurs.
“Nothing in this life is right,” I say, and I know what I’m talking about.
After a long pause, she begins a complex choreography of climbing onto my hips without unplugging the umpteen tubes that connect me to the IV pole. The incision on my abdomen is healing, but it isn’t a good idea to rest any weight there. She tries to be quick. Straddling me on her knees, she lets herself down carefully, until she relaxes on me. How long it has been since my body has given me joy, I think. I stroke her thighs. I love women.
“See? It was nothing,” I say to reassure her.
“Yes, it was nothing,” she agrees.
I ask what she has on the tray.
“Your antibiotics.”
The antibiotics alone won’t get me where I want to go, I think.
“Anything else?”
“Two other prescriptions, which have to be given at intervals,” she says.
I have time. I propose that we play doctors and nurses, and laugh. She wants to get down. Annoyed, I say that she can get down in just a minute, but first I want a favor. Maria Clara looks startled, afraid to even imagine what I’m about to suggest. I am direct.
“Inject it all at once,” I say, and wait to see what her reaction will be.
Maria Clara draws back, and is about to return to the sofa bed, but I squeeze her wrist and rattle off the horrors of the ICU, the machines to prolong life, my grandfather who died seventeen days before he checked out, his coffin dripping blood, his body riddled with holes from every kind of urgent intervention.
“You have to help me. They’re going to stuff me full of tubes, I’m going to die in agony, you know it. I know you all talk about your patients. I’m not getting out of here. You’re my angel, Maria Clara. I’ve chosen you. Let me go like this, between your legs, please do what I’m asking.”
She looks at me, terrified. I continue with my plea. As long as she is listening, she won’t leave my side.
“If you get off this bed, even if you visit me every day, and sit on me every day, I’ll never again feel the pleasure I felt just now, in this gesture of yours. Be a saint, have mercy on me.”
A sepulchral silence fills the room. Maria Clara stares at me deeply. How beautiful she is, good God. Without a word, she reaches over to the little table and pulls the metal tray with three injections toward her.
“I don’t know if it’ll work,” she says.
I feel indescribable joy. Concerned that the cocktail might not be lethal enough, I ask if she has anything else in her handbag.
“Just some pain killers.”
“Mix it all together,” I order. It comes out too harsh and I follow it up with the disastrous argument that, alive, I’d be a problem for her.
“Everyone’s expecting me to die. No one’s going to think it wasn’t natural. But if I’m here tomorrow, they’ll test me, open me up, then they’ll come for you.”
The reminder that it’s against the law, and could be investigated, puts a damper on her decision to help me. Maria Clara panics. In a muffled voice, she says she won’t do it.
“Get off,” I say drily. “It’s not supposed to be like this. And you needn’t come tomorrow. I’ll talk to Eneida and ask her to find someone to take your place.”
Disappointed, I roll over and pretend to be asleep.
Maria Clara gets down. A terrifying cold seeps through my bones. She recomposes herself and lifts the side rail back up. She leaves in silence. I am alone, in the tomb. I think of nothing, neither future or past. All I have left is the agonizing wait. I close my eyes.
I think I must have fallen sleep. I am woken by the metallic rattle of the bed. Someone is lowering it. I hear the scrape of the step stool and a face appears over me. It’s her. Maria Clara climbs onto me again and I feel the warmth of her blood heating up mine. Like before, she reaches for the medicine tray and says calmly, “It’s time for your medicine.”
Maria Clara holds the syringe and gets up on her knees to reach the IV pole. Her belly is close to my face. I slip my hand under her skirt and pull aside her panties. I want to smell her. She lets me, as she injects the contents of the syringe into the drip. A wave of warmth runs through my veins and my hair stands on end. Her skin on mine, velvet. Morphine. My dose. The last one.
“I love you, Maria Clara.”
I press her against the elevator wall, our voices echoing in the shaft. She’s mine, I cry, and drag Ruth out of the circle. On the balcony, we kiss with the same urgency. A bolt of lightning charges down my spine. I run a hand between Maria Clara’s legs until I touch the middle of her, then I slip my fingers inside her.
“My name is Ciro. I’m a lawyer, divorced, and it’s never happened to me like this.”