Leaving Highway 26A, in the direction of Onça Hill, the stretch of dirt road begins. The air is pleasant and calm, and you smell the fragrance of flowers from the woods. On the radio, the same old thing: music and trash. Luciene and Josias got drunk and smoked grass all Saturday afternoon. After he was caught, Josias confessed that he’d received a demonic order from heaven to dismember the girl as soon as she fell asleep. Since she took a long time to do so, Josias decided to strangle her before cutting her up. The pieces of the girl were thrown into Deep Creek.
I opened the window and repeated, So far so good, over. I’m not Josias, I didn’t dismember anyone. I don’t know Luciene. I’m not floating in Deep Creek, over.
At the first bridge, a police car followed by an ambulance passed me. I knew very well where they were heading and felt a certain relief. And also fear.
I bypassed the gas station and parked near the restaurant. If that actually was a party, I was the first to arrive.
In the narrow, run-down shed, there wasn’t room for ten tables. It was decorated with drawings of ibises, tapirs, parakeets, cormorants, herons, and crows that Carlão himself had painted and that I had nicknamed the Pantanal Horror Show. It had formerly been a restaurant, but now the place sold trinkets to tourists because Rita wasn’t a good cook like Carlão’s ex-wife.
The kitchen was in the rear, looking out onto a large open patio. I imagined that Rita and Carlão had decided to hold the party outside because of the heat.
I found Rita by herself, seated in a lounge chair, smoking and drinking. She was wearing a light green dress, the skirt raised and crumpled in her lap so that her firm, pretty legs were visible. Her hair, gathered in a knot, formed a kind of nest on top of her head.
You’re the first to arrive, she said. You win a prize. A one-way ticket to anywhere a long way from Corumbá.
I sat down in the chair beside her, and she immediately put her feet with their bright-red nails in my lap. She was drunk.
I asked about Carlão and she told me he’d gone for beer. It’s gonna be a big party; I even invited a group of guitar players. You like to dance?
I said no.
I’ll try to teach you, but it isn’t easy. You have to let me lead.
What about the other guests?
They’re getting here. Along with the food. I ordered everything. A huge cake like your mother used to make. In layers. And you, you rude man, still haven’t congratulated me. How old do you think I am?
Congratulations.
How old?
What?
How old?
I don’t know. Not old.
Take a guess, she said, stamping with her foot on my right thigh.
Twenty-two.
Almost. I’m not gonna be specific, ’cause ten years from now I don’t want you to know my age.
I removed her legs from my lap, but she put them back again.
I’m never getting old, she said. I use cream all over my face. And if I’m ugly at forty I’ll kill myself. I’d rather die young than get all wrinkled. Do you think I’m pretty?
Yes. Where’s Carlão?
I’m the one having a birthday, not Carlão. It’s about me today.
She got up and pulled me by the hand. Let’s have a beer, she said, before the party starts.
In the kitchen, she opened the refrigerator, took out two cans and handed me one. And then she wrapped her arms around my neck. I felt the cold can against the back of my neck, and the chill went down my spine.
What are we doing here? she asked.
The party, I said. Cake, dancing, etc.
I’m talking about our future. A plan for our lives. A project. Why don’t we run away from here?
Carlão is taking a long time, I said.
You’re not going to tell me you plan to marry a corrupt cop who you hardly know.
She’s not corrupt, I said.
But she’s a cop. And all cops are corrupt. Let’s speak the truth: the vacation was great. You got out of that funk of yours and I had a real good time in the Pantanal. It was cool with Carlão. I mean, until I met you it was cool. But Carlão is an old man.
I started to laugh. Carlão is only three years older than me, I said.
It’s exactly those three years that fuck everything up, it’s the same difference between a woman of thirty-seven and one of forty, understand? A fundamental difference. I’m not into him anymore. It was cool and all, but I’ve had enough. Corumbá is for the birds. You’re from São Paulo, and I’m not from here myself. This is no place for the two of us. I know very well that you’re crazy about me. From the day you set foot in here I saw how you looked at me. I know why you moved out of here. You don’t want to hurt Carlão. But mark my words, the two of us have to be together.
It was only then that she told me that Carlão had gone to Campo Grande. Also, that there wasn’t a party at all. And it’s not my birthday, she said.
By then she was laughing and kissing me. Until that day, I can honestly say I tried to resist. When things between her and me heated up, I disappeared. And when she called me I wouldn’t answer, or if I answered I’d blow her off. And when I began thinking about Rita I remembered the day Carlão had called me into his office and shown me a gun, saying that it was how problems were resolved in those parts.
If the whole thing were just a film, we’d be at the moment when you feel like telling the character to get out of there. It’s a tense scene: the character knocks at the door of the fatal house and asks, Anyone there? No one answers and he goes in anyway. And inside there’s a killer or a dead body or both. In the film, the guy goes ahead and the rest you know already. Lots of blood. Pure adrenaline. In real life, you don’t go in. By way of compensation, you do worse things. You rob a cadaver. You hire some loser of an Indian to sell the blow you stole off the corpse. You fuck your cousin’s wife. You do that because you believe you can make a mistake, just one, just one more, and another, just one more little screw-up, and then return and go on with your path, your film, because the course of life continues there, static, waiting for you to screw up and return later.
Before I realized it, we were on the floor, her grunting, me sweating, both of us in a clumsy frenzy like the dogs I’ve seen copulating in the vacant lot next to my house. We barely managed to rip our clothes off, we fucked clothed, with Rita’s panties chafing my cock. The heat and the fear of being caught increased my desire; I let her take charge, the bitch. On top of me. Lick my face, she said, bite me, suck me, put it in, put it in, deeper, and then, just as I was about to come, she started calling me puppy, and it was as if that word had the power to drag me away and make me understand what was going on. You’re gonna be at my feet, puppy, she said, you’re gonna obey me, be my slave. I was overcome with terror, Puppy, a collar, she repeated, breaking the rhythm, not allowing me to come, and it was only then that I grasped what was happening and decided to set things straight. I got her off me, placed her on the floor. She opened her legs but I didn’t plunge into that fissure. Instead I held her head between my legs and did the rest by myself, using my hands, until I came.
I left her lying there, her face smeared with cum.