It was already light out when Maria Clara left the hospital, the sun harsh on her skin. She hated working nights. So many people die after midnight, she said every time she found herself on the night shift.
She walked to the bus stop, feeling weary. She didn’t want to think about what she had done—it was done, may he rest in peace. No one had found anything suspicious; he hadn’t received any visitors in the two weeks she had worked there. They all knew. A bed would become available. Who would care? It was better for him, she concluded, a migraine piercing her head like a hook. She took out the blister pack of painkillers from her bag—she had saved one for herself. She popped out the black disc, put it in her mouth, and swallowed it dry. It felt good to board the bus and get moving. The morning, as clear as the previous afternoon, acted on her senses along with the pill. She remembered the nervousness with which she had gotten off at the bus stop the night before, hurrying up the stairs to the room. Why did she want to see him so badly? Her attention wandered over the breathtaking scenery, Sugarloaf Mountain waking up to yet another hot day overlooking Guanabara Bay. Euthanasia, death, a prison sentence. Ciro. The image of Ciro, his hands on her waist. Maria Clara fell asleep with her head leaning on the bus window.
She was a nurse, but she could have been a flight attendant. She had wanted to wear a uniform, have men fantasize about her. When people asked, she said it was her dream to work in medicine, or to see the world. It was all a lie. What Maria Clara really liked was to feel attractive. She made the wrong choice. Aviation, perhaps, would have given her a few more years of illusion. The hospital routine turned out to be brutal from the outset: the bedpans, the sponge baths, the fart smell of the rooms. She was ready to throw in the towel when Lívia suggested she take her place as companion to a patient who was terminally ill.
“He isn’t old,” her friend told her.“He’s still good-looking, a gentleman; he quotes philosophers to flirt with us, you’ll like him. All you have to do is give him his medicine and brush his teeth. The nursing staff will take care of the rest.”
Lívia was living out the destiny that Maria Clara had dreamed of for herself. She had married a doctor, from a long line of doctors, and had become pregnant four months later. Forbidden to set foot in the hospital, and happy about it, as she intended to be a full-time wife and mother, she rescued her friend from the horrors of ER.
During the two weeks that she watched over her new patient, Ciro wasn’t there. He mumbled some words that she couldn’t make out and seemed to hear what she said, but he never opened his eyes. Cold and professional, Maria Clara remained aloof, dispensed with greetings, and ignored the man on the bed for most of the time she was there. She bathed him, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair, always indifferent, impartial, absent. She spent her time doing crossword puzzles, leafing through magazines, taking his blood pressure, watching TV, and dozing. Ten hours after clocking on, she would leave, her day’s work done.
She grew to like the night shift. She would leave at seven in the morning and have breakfast with her boyfriend downtown. Unlike the ER, her current job allowed her to get a decent night’s sleep, and she would show up for her dates feeling fresh, ready to plan her prosperous future with Nelson.
The nurse’s uniform had been Cupid’s arrow. They had met at the bakery, as had become custom, he on his way to work at the bank, she leaving the night shift. The white clothes accentuating her curves, the light-colored pumps, the knees on display. Nelson went crazy over the brunette with broad hips, wearing that erotic costume in broad daylight. He asked her out, gave her his phone number, his address, asked her to marry him. Nothing tugged on Maria Clara’s heartstrings more than a man in a suit who was attracted to her. She was proper, but accessible. They arranged to go out for dinner. Nelson spent to impress, and she was duly impressed, but later she understood the hand-to-mouth reality of her suitor, who lived on the meager wages of a bank employee and the hope of a promotion. She was bothered by the fact that he didn’t have a car. Nelson took the bus, which in her mind stole much of his virility.
Better than nothing.
Maria Clara had left her family in Friburgo to study in the capital. Aunts and uncles, cousins, parents, siblings, grandparents. She supported herself in Rio with great effort, taking the worst shifts, working overtime, whatever it took. Now, regretting her choice of profession, she wanted urgently to find someone to look after her, share the bills, and keep her near the ocean. Nelson wasn’t good-looking but he wasn’t ugly, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t cheat, and he doted on Maria Clara. He wasn’t the catch Lívia had found, but nor was she Lívia. Each to her own. She took the only opportunity that appeared and had sex with Nelson as soon as she felt it was safe. She wanted to ensure that he would feel guilty if he ever decided to leave her. She wasn’t head over heels in love with her fiancé; it was enough to have one, or almost enough. Nelson was more committed, saving money and making plans to live happily ever after.
Eneida taught her how to address a patient in an induced coma.
“Speak clearly, close to his ear. Don’t speak directly into his ear canal, as it can cause deafness. Speak clearly and slowly. They can hear you.”
And she demonstrated the technique.
No one had told her about the change in medication. Maria Clara was holding a wet towel to Ciro’s face before shaving him, when the dead man’s eyes popped open and stared at her in confusion. Seeing him awake, she almost fainted. She had grown accustomed to the idea that Ciro didn’t exist. She missed a breath when she saw the mass of flesh transform into a large, indignant man, staring straight at her. Terrified, she resorted to Eneida’s stereophonic speech:
“MY NAME IS MARIA CLARA, I’VE REPLACED LÍVIA. SHE CAME TO INTRODUCE ME. SHE WANTED TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU, BUT YOU WERE ASLEEP. LÍVIA TOLD ME TO GIVE YOU A HU…”
“Are you deaf?” asked Ciro harshly, with the little strength he had left. “Why are you shouting? Did someone die? Who’s dead? Someone died, I remember the funeral.”
He understood he was delirious and asked for water, his mouth dry.
“Won’t you give water to a dying man?” he said, already feeling capable of making jokes.
Maria Clara went to get it and returned with the glass, trembling. Ciro drank it and looked her up and down.
“Lívia told me I wouldn’t be disappointed. Let me see. What’s your name?”
“I told you my name.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Maria Clara.”
“Maria Clara. Pretty.”
“You think so?”
“I do. Don’t you?”
“No.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Do you intend to get married?”
“Yes, God willing.”
“Pray for Him not to be willing. How old are you?”
“Twenty-four.”
“Twenty-four. It’ll pass. Make the most of it because it flies by.”
Tired of the banter, Ciro allowed himself a pause.
“Why do you want to get married?”
“Because it’s what there is to do.”
“That’s not an answer. Why do you want to get married?”
“Because I don’t want to go back to Friburgo.”
“Now that’s a concrete reason. Nevertheless, don’t do it. Do you love him?”
“More or less.”
“Then there’s no problem.”
“Why is there no problem?”
“Because marriage with love always ends in tragedy.”
Maria Clara looked at him in dismay.
“Can I have something to eat?”
“I think so.”
She pressed the nurse call button. Within seconds, the room filled with nurses taking blood pressure, drawing blood, and checking his reflexes. Maria Clara disappeared behind the crowd, sat on the sofa, and mulled over the short dialogue. It wasn’t every day that she met someone who was interested in her life. She had always felt bad about being with Nelson out of convenience. She had decided to renounce luck, be a realist, and marry frustration. Now, an entity had appeared from the other side to say that marriage was certain disaster. He had spoken of tragedy. Condemned love. Assured her that the lack of affection might be an advantage. In what? she thought. She felt like telling him what no one else knew: that during a period when she was tight for money, she had accepted the favors of an older gentleman in Tijuca to make the rent, which was in arrears. He supported her for a time. She suspected that what she felt for Nelson was no different than the void she felt when she took her clothes off in the bedroom of the mildew-infested apartment on Rua Conde de Bonfim. What good was there in that? Ciro had only given her one imperative, and it was spot-on: Make the most of it, he had said. Make the most of it because it flies by. Indeed. In the last year, Maria Clara had realized that, although she was still young, she had no more time for sudden or big changes of direction in life. Too late to change careers or find a better man. He’s right, it flies by, she thought.
The doctors ordered an EKG, an ultrasound, and an x-ray of the thorax. They took him away for exams. When Gisa came to relieve Maria Clara, Ciro still hadn’t returned. She cursed her coworker’s punctuality and struck up a conversation for an excuse to hang back. Gisa listened to what had happened, laughed at the fright she’d had, and gossiped about Ciro a little.
“His son came here a few times with an aunt. He’s divorced. In the beginning, a few friends used to come, then they all disappeared. They put him to sleep two weeks ago, just before you started. They’re going to knock him out again, you’ll see.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure.”
The news saddened Maria Clara.
“Why don’t they let him go in peace?” said Giza, her eyes glassing over.
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you see the torture? They poke holes in him, turn him inside out, take x-rays, wake him up to do tests, and then they turn him off again. It’s cruel. Medicine denies a citizen his basic rights. It’s unconstitutional.”
Maria Clara was shocked. She had been there for over ten days and had never formulated a single relevant thought about the patient. What he did or didn’t take was the doctors’ responsibility. She had never questioned the decisions of the high command, much less in such legal terms. She looked at her colleague, astonished, feeling stupid and superficial. Gisa was left-leaning, politically aware, did social work, read books that weighed more than a pound, and smoked on the second-floor balcony.
Ciro didn’t come back. Maria Clara left, devastated. It would be good to have a chance to be alone once again with an experienced, older man who was interested in her problems. She missed her family. She reluctantly caught the bus, afraid that Ciro might not hold out until her next shift. It was a whole day away.
She met Nelson outside of the bank. He had splurged and bought two tickets to the preview of Days of Thunder at São Luiz Cinema on Machado Square. Maria Clara was a Tom Cruise fan. They had dinner at her place: frozen ravioli and instant custard. As always, the conversation led to the subject of their wedding. Maria Clara didn’t feign enthusiasm as she usually did. She just noted her boyfriend’s cheer. He noted her coldness and assumed she wasn’t feeling well. Hospitals don’t do anyone any good, he thought, certain that one day he’d free his beloved from the slavery of health work. He would earn enough so that she could stay home, go to the hair salon, lead the easy life of a director’s wife, with a cook, a governess, and a nanny at her disposal. They’d have the right to a luxury sedan, and he would let the driver go just to have the pleasure of driving her around himself.
Nelson slept at his fiancée’s studio apartment and left for work early. The day dawned cool. Maria Clara stayed in bed until late, spent the day at home, prowling around the phone, fearful of bad news. She left for work an hour early, unable to bear the wait. On her way up the hill to the hospital, the bay provided a dark blue backdrop and the late-afternoon sun backlit the mountains with an orangey light, the clear sky, the wonders of Rio. The idea of returning to her hometown in the mountains, having to say goodbye to all that, was unbearable. She remembered Ciro and went over the questions she planned to ask him. It was urgent; she needed to hear him. She depended on it. The lack of news about him was a good sign. She was sure he had made it through the night. She quickened her step. Would he be awake?
Ciro was asleep, and looked gaunter than the previous day. Maria Clara washed her hands and sat down to wait. She forgot the crosswords, the magazines, the TV. When the sun hid itself behind the treetops, melancholy washed over her. She had been sitting in the same place for over three hours, attuned to the slightest movement, but nothing happened. She stood up to put on her sweater. It was cold. Insects were buzzing outside, so she closed the window, but the silence was more irritating than the din of the forest, and she opened it again. When an orderly came to make the bed, Maria Clara took the opportunity to shower and put on an ironed uniform. She wasn’t in the habit of wearing it with Ciro, but she wanted to do something special for him. She came out of the bathroom, checked on her slumbering hunk, and lay down on the made bed. She stared at the ceiling. What if he didn’t wake up? She wouldn’t be able to leave there without seeing him. She realized she hadn’t thought about her fiancé since earlier that morning. I’m not going to marry him, something in her decided for her. She wanted Ciro to be the first to know.
At nine, a nurse came to deliver the medication chart for the night. Eneida, Gisa, and Maria Clara were allowed to administer the drugs. Dr. Júlio had come to an arrangement with the hospital in which part of the companions’ wages came out of the cost of the treatment covered by insurance. The maneuver allowed Ciro to remain surrounded by women until the last hour.
Maria Clara took his blood pressure and temperature, changed the drip, and injected the antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medicine into it. Ciro didn’t move. When she was done, she stood there, admiring him. Comas are so unbecoming, she thought. The patient’s muscles, relaxed to an extreme, leave the mouth wide open, the chin weighs on the neck, and the skin of the cheeks melts off the bones. God forbid that I should end up like that. Her previous indifference suddenly reappeared. She stared at him coldly and saw herself beside a corpse. Instinctively, she backed off. What an idiot she was. She had nourished the hope that a dead man would have something important to tell her, some light to shed. Stupid. She turned away from Ciro, annoyed, sat down and turned on the TV. A barefoot Bruce Willis was making his way over the debris of a recent explosion. Die Hard. Bullets were flying everywhere. Maria Clara let the violence of the film express her frustration at having such a lousy destiny. Why hadn’t she applied for a job as a flight attendant with Varig?
I’m going to marry Nelson, she reassured herself. I’m going to get married, have kids, quit this crappy job, and stay in Rio. She didn’t wait for the American movie hero to finish his work, and turned off the TV. She set the alarm clock for two in the morning, lay down on the sofa bed, turned off the light, and tried to fall asleep. She didn’t think about Ciro anymore, she couldn’t have cared less about him. Tomorrow she’d find someone to take her place. Lívia had been wrong, it wasn’t the job for her. She’d be a flight attendant, there was still time. She’d leave Nelson, hit the road, have lunch in Paris, dine in London, visit the pyramids, Disneyland, the Northeast of Brazil. She wrestled with insomnia and fell asleep without noticing.
* * *
The alarm sounded. Maria Clara emerged from the darkness, irritated. She hadn’t dreamed. It took her a while to focus. The medicine, she remembered, time for the medicine. She switched on the lamp, went to the bed, took the body’s blood pressure, adjusted the thermometer in the armpit, concentrated on the gauze, the alcohol, the syringe. She threw away the used needle. When she finished injecting the drugs, she felt a hand patting her buttocks. She turned—it was Ciro.
The bulging eyes and fury of the previous day were gone. He looked exhausted, smaller, more fragile. He asked what day it was in a feeble voice.
“August fourth, nineteen ninety,” she replied.
“A fine date.”
Maria Clara had made such a great effort to free herself of any expectations she had placed on the dying man that now she couldn’t think of a single important question. And Ciro, too, had lost his authority; he no longer inspired the same trust. The hand went back to patting her. He had woken up lustful.
“Mr. Ciro…”
She didn’t know what to call him. She thought the “Mr.” followed by the first name Ciro sounded ridiculous. But just “Ciro” was too intimate. “Sir” was too severe. And she couldn’t remember his surname. So she used “Mr. Ciro,” even though she knew it wasn’t right. She felt his hand slide up her side.
“Mr. Ciro…” she repeated awkwardly.
She didn’t want to brush him off, but she hadn’t been expecting that. Maria Clara blushed and tried to push away the hand that was squeezing her breast, but Ciro latched on and didn’t let go.
“Lívia didn’t lie. You’re really beautiful, Maria Clara.”
She had never been able to resist praise, but discovering that Ciro hadn’t forgotten her name caused her to flush, her knees to buckle, and her lungs to pump air through her nostrils.
“Come, sit on me,” he said.
Maria Clara wanted to grant him his wish. She liked to realize men’s desires. It was a special request, and it wouldn’t happen again. Without a word, she lowered the side rail, pulled over the step stool, and sat on the edge of the bed. What did she have to lose? Tomorrow she’d be far away, she’d never see him again. He’d be dead in two days, at any rate. Why deny him his wish? Needing to feel special to someone, she fantasized that Ciro would die thinking about her. She would be the last one, the definitive one. Never again would she be offered something like that. With a brusque movement, she got up and straddled him, kneeling on the mattress. They loved one another. That was when Ciro proposed murder. Maria Clara backed off, frightened.
“Be a saint,” he said. “Have mercy on me.”
Be a saint. Forget Tijuca. What a proposal. She’d have done anything for him. But Ciro reminded her that people might be suspicious, there might be an investigation, and this awareness of the crime interrupted her act of kindness. She didn’t want that for herself. He didn’t argue and told her to get down in a harsh, impersonal voice.
“You needn’t come tomorrow; I’ll talk to Eneida and she’ll find someone to take your place.”
Maria Clara did as he asked. She climbed down, humiliated. She dragged the step stool back to the corner with her head down, straightened her uniform, raised the side rail, and took refuge on the sofa bed. Ciro fell asleep. She had gone there not knowing whether she should get married; six hours later she was considering whether or not she should end someone’s life. She couldn’t believe Ciro’s dryness. He asks me to be a saint and then treats me like dirt. Well, I’m not dirt. I might not be highly educated, I don’t read the newspaper or those books that Gisa reads, but I know what a crime is. I won’t do it. I’ve done many wrong things, but not this. I wanted him to like me—I know how to please a man, it’s one of my biggest attributes—but then he goes and asks me to do something like that… And he gets offended when I don’t want to. Why didn’t he slit his own wrists when he still had the chance? She remained seated, unable to halt her thoughts.
Then she stood and left.
She went to the nursing station. She didn’t like what she found there. Three truculent young male nurses and an ugly head nurse. Ciro deserved better. Ciro deserved it to be with her. One of the nurses asked if Maria Clara needed help and she said no, she’d just come to get a breath of air.
“He’s still unconscious,” she lied, and returned to the room ready to earn her sainthood.
Ciro was in a light sleep. Maria Clara took whatever medicines she could find, mixed them with the morphine, made a cocktail, placed the syringe to one side, and climbed onto the bed once again. She called Ciro, he opened his eyes.
“It’s time for your medicine,” she said.
Sitting astride him, she witnessed the dance of death. When he came back to the present, Ciro gazed at her and smiled, then he sank back into the unfathomable. He looked happy; Maria Clara was a good angel.
Surprised at her own deed, she climbed down carefully, tidied the room, placed the medicine on the tray, and put together a plan of action. She followed it to a tee. She waited until dawn, pressed the button, and said that when she’d checked on him before going to sleep herself, there had been nothing worrying, but just now, in the morning, she had discovered that he wasn’t breathing. No one doubted her. The general acceptance eased her fear of being caught. Confident, she phoned the other companions. Eneida cried, Gisa was relieved, and Lívia, indifferent. Eneida said she wouldn’t attend the funeral. “If I go to the funeral of every patient who dies, I’ll never leave the cemetery,” she said. Gisa didn’t see the point in mourning the death of a middle-class man. Maria Clara said she would represent them all. Her coworkers were surprised. The last one to start, who had only seen Ciro with his eyes open once, insisted on paying her respects. To each his own, thought Eneida.
It wasn’t long before Maria Clara was allowed to leave. She signed some papers, saw the formalities through, changed clothes, and walked down the ramp to the bus stop. She fell asleep on the way home. When she got home she slept, too, all afternoon. She had a secret. She dreamed of Ciro. They had sex, she watched him sleep, they talked, they were lovers. She woke up feeling good, different. She had killed someone. She had carried out the heroic act, given him his mercy shot, something holy, divine. She was special. To marry or not, to be this or that, to serve coffee in the skies or dress wounds down below, what difference did it make? Maria Clara was no longer guided by the day-to-day, she dealt in the eternal.
The next day, she put on her best mourning attire, high heels, applied light makeup with great care, and went to say farewell to the most important thing that had ever happened to her.
Padre Graça bore the guilt of having given up the cassock for quite some time. The only way he found to atone for what he had done was in penitence. He fasted and endured self-inflicted hardships, but remained locked into the codes of the priesthood. He decided to make a pilgrimage. He buried his cassock and liturgical objects in the backyard and set out in a northwesterly direction. At the age of fifty-four, he would become someone else.
He spent more than a year traveling up the map, chewing up asphalt, and wearing out shoes. God morphing into the planet itself, air currents, dense cloud, inclement sun, the moon, and storms. He slept under the open sky, afraid of animals, of people, and was mugged more than once. He worked as a farmhand, felt feverish, cold, hungry, and thirsty. His only objective was to keep going. Life is the journey, Tiresias told Odysseus. Three hundred and eighty-two days after beginning his trek, he found himself wandering around the center of Campo Grande, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. He walked into an air-conditioned mall to take refuge from the heat and set eyes on a wooden door with a small sign on it: FOREST. It was an environmental NGO. He went in and was informed that they didn’t need anyone there, but that the organization worked with dozens of outlying posts in desperate need of volunteers. Graça studied the list of posts in locations as far-flung as Oiapoque, Boca do Acre, Lábrea, Manicoré, Aripuanã, Parecis, Jaciara. He took an interest in Manicoré, in the South of the state of Amazonas, and read the names of the local ethnicities: Tenharim, Parintintin, Diahoi, Torá, Apurinã. He had received his mission.
For twenty-four years he had cultivated flowery gravestones and leafy mausoleums in his garden of reinforced concrete, and now it was time to watch over the real paradise. The single-engine plane flew for hours over soy plantations and cattle pastures, until it reached the green wall of ancient forest. He grew accustomed to the sultry weather, to the large insects and snakes, to the noises of the night and the rowdy games of the natives. He liked to visit the villages, to see the sun reflected in the clearings between the huts, to be surrounded by the young indigenous women, with their diaphanous laughter and black hair. He married one, and taught her the gospel.
Far from the metaphysics of the other world, Graça devoted himself to urgent problems: crimes against nature, electric saws, tractors, currents, and pesticides. He was fighting a demon called civilization.
He woke before sunrise, washed his face with cold water, dressed. His wife made breakfast. He was going to walk for three hours along a trail through dense forest to the Torá tribe. Illegal loggers had set up camp in the indigenous reserve and Graça had been chosen to mediate the conflict. The finch sang in its cage when he stepped through the front door, and he remembered that he’d forgotten to feed it. He took a small bag of birdseed from a shelf on the veranda and carefully filled the feeder. The newspaper at the bottom of the cage needed changing, so he got some fresh paper, opened the hatch, and replaced it. He gave a friendly whistle, passing a finger through the bars to touch the bird. Graça loved the creature. That was when he heard the dry crack in the forest. The shot. He felt a sharp pain in his ribs, a sting, a burning ember inside. He doubled over, dropped to the floor, and collapsed, staring at the ceiling. A warm sensation spread through his body, from the center toward his extremities. He no longer felt the sting. He felt his belly swell, pressing on his lungs and glottis, his eardrums and cerebellum; the shortness of breath, the blood pulsing in his ears, the tingling, the sleepiness, the tunnel, the switching off. This is my death, he thought.
He stopped to watch.
He saw himself sucked, pulled to the floor by a colossal gravity—he needed to do something. What to think about? A crowd of unmoving faces appeared all of a sudden. The veranda, the ceiling, the cage seen from below, it was all still there, shrouded in haze, while the dead, forming a queue inside him, grew increasingly clear. The women, the men, the children, and the elderly; the mothers, the sons and daughters, the youths, and the sick that he had commended to God. Hades. He was back in the chapel of São João Batista Cemetery, he was the Pope, blessing a coffin. The last one. Álvaro. He wasn’t aware of the name, the face was unfamiliar, but he knew that the last wake had been his. “Take from this world the soul of our brother. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” A refined elderly woman was staring at him from a corner; he would never forget her look of disapproval. Irene was returning his question, centuries after hearing it. Who’s next? Graça glanced back at the coffin and discovered himself in it, inert, lying there, finite. He was afraid. He returned to the ceiling, the cage, the wooden house, and the forest. The day was dawning. He thought he heard a shout. A dark-skinned woman appeared in his narrow field of vision, her face contorted, screaming. He couldn’t hear her anymore. Where was he? Who was he? A dead man. A thousand deaths in one. He would carry them all with him. Not yet. He buried his cassock in the backyard, remade the march, took the plane, wove his way into the forest, staked out the house, watched. He saw himself on the veranda, feeding the finch. He knew he was next.