The Body Snatcher (9 page)

No, I said.

I've had it, he said. The woman's driving me crazy.

I did what I could to calm Moacir, took him for a beer at the corner bar, but to make matters worse, Alceu, the butcher, had the same idea.

See how he looks at me? Then he says he's not looking, he's cross-eyed. Look at him looking over here. I feel like putting out both the bastard's eyes.

The guy's cross-eyed, I said. He's looking at the door, not at us.

He is?

I know those cross-eyed types, I said. You need to calm down. Eliana is an honest woman.

You think so?

Without any doubt.

What about that Alceu guy?

He sells meat, I said. That's all. Cross-eyed.

You think so?

Of course. Eliana loves you, I replied. That's what I'm saying.

We returned home. Moacir seemed to be under control. He said that Ramirez's agent had run into a problem in Paraguay and still hadn't come to pick up the shipment. Careful, I said, you're already talking like a trafficker.

We laughed. Tomorrow, he said, I'm gonna slip you some dough. I've already sold almost a hundred grams today.

We said goodbye, I went up to my room, and when I was almost asleep Carlão phoned me. Are you awake?

More or less.

I want to talk to you.

I felt a chill in my spine. About what?

Can you come here?

Tomorrow?

No. I need your help. Now.

From the look of things, that Sunday had no intention of ending.

Rita's face was like a handful of raw meat, her mouth swollen, bruises; nothing was in order in that face. Her nose was bleeding, and one tooth had been broken. On the sofa, sobbing, she said she was going to lose her child.

Let's take her to the hospital, I told Carlão.

I hope she dies, my cousin said. That bitch. I left my family for her. Two daughters. I hope the baby dies too, that's what I want to happen to that cow.

Carlão left the room. Rita didn't even look at me, sobbing uncontrollably. I moved toward the phone, planning to call an ambulance, but then Carlão returned with a gun. That was when I realized he knew everything.

We're getting out of here, he said. To the car. Both of you. Now.

Take it easy, Carlão. Let's talk, I said.

Now you want to talk, you son of a bitch? You made some poor woman kill herself in São Paulo, I went there, picked you up out of the gutter, brought you here, offered my home, got you a job, you came here, ate my food and took advantage of her being easy, fucked my wife, got my wife pregnant.

I'm not your wife, Rita said.

Shut up, you whore.

You're not my husband, insisted Rita.

The only reason I don't kill the two of you right here and now is 'cause I don't want to dirty my living room with the blood of a couple of pigs. And 'cause I don't want to just kill, I want to bury too. Move it, both of you.

Before going out to the gas station where Carlão's car was, we went through the garage, and he got a shovel and handed it to Rita. I saw blood running down her legs. Stay calm, I said, everything's going to be all right.

In the car, he asked whether if I was spared I would take care of the wretched being that was going to be born, which wouldn't happen because he would kill me along with Rita. That's as sure as two and two is four, he said, but let's suppose I'm a fool and let you two go free?

As soon as I managed to open my mouth to say I was sorry, that neither Rita nor I meant for it to happen, which was a lie – because we had wanted each other from the first day, seeing her sunbathing in a bikini, I was crazy from the first instant, but it was true that I regretted it, that my wish was never to have gotten near Rita – he started yelling, Shut your trap, you goddamn son of a bitch, shut your mouth, you motherfucker, because I swear if I hear your voice I'll kill you both right here and then set fire to the car.

We drove for over twenty minutes, the car being jolted by the dirt road full of potholes, then turned onto a small trail, in even worse condition, and followed it for another ten minutes.

The night was clear and we could see the terrain around us, the trees, the whole landscape. Carlão parked, turned off the headlights, and as soon as we got out, handed the shovel to Rita, ordering her to dig under an
ipê
tree. Keep digging, he said repeatedly. Deeper. Faster. Harder. And when she fell down, he would kick her, saying that she wasn't even any good for that, for digging her own grave. He handed me the shovel.

When the hole was deep enough, Carlão told us to get inside and keep our backs to him.

We obeyed. Sobbing, Rita squeezed my hand.

Let go of his hand, you bitch, screamed Carlão.

I won't, she said. If I'm going to die, I want to die like this.

I tried to pull my hand away, but Rita clutched it tightly.

I closed my eyes, awaiting the worst. And then we heard footsteps in the woods. I thought it was someone approaching but quickly realized the sound was moving away from us.

I gathered my courage and looked behind me and saw Carlão leaving, the gun in his hand.

Rita sobbed, trembling. Stay calm, I said.

I thought we had sunk as low as we could. But things were going to get a lot worse.

16

Collapse, over, I told myself at the hospital. I was trying to stay calm, so was Sulamita. But Sulamita had one curious characteristic. She was capable of sinking into the mud of her own life, to succumb to her private bog, but when it was somebody else in the swamp, she would rise to the occasion, start up her tractor and go about removing and pushing aside the rubble with great ability.

It was she who took the reins in the situation. It was she who called a taxi and came for us after I phoned the morgue, where she was on duty in the middle of the night, telling her what had happened. We had walked for over two hours before finding an inn where we could ask for help. Rita could barely manage to speak. On the way to the hospital I made up a bunch of lies to tell Sulamita, said I was with Carlão and Rita having a beer at their house when they started fighting, that we went to the inn together and Carlão, who was drunk, lost control and had a fit on the way back. Thanks to me, I said, the worst was averted.

At the hospital, after Rita was attended to, Sulamita insisted that I report Carlão. Is that cousin of yours a psychopath? He almost killed the girl. It's very likely she'll lose the baby.

You always ask me why I don't spend time with my cousin, I replied. Now you know. Carlão is crazy, Rita is crazy, their lives are total confusion, and I don't feel like being part of it.

I had been very clear with Rita before Sulamita came for
us at the inn. I said, If you tell Sulamita anything, if you hurt my fiancée – my exact word, fiancée – I'll rearrange your face myself. Afterward I felt sorry for being so coarse. At that moment Rita had ceased to be a girl with a bombastic smile and looked more like a slender thread, an insignificant little thing, but nevertheless her ability to do me in, to grind me into dust, was still enormous.

Rita was in the hospital for three days, and during that time it was Sulamita who looked after her. She took clothes, magazines, fruit, sat at her side and held her hand, saying, Rest easy, you're not going to lose the baby. Everything's all right. You're going to be okay. We're going to help you. Do you want me to let your mother know? Your father? Your brothers and sisters? Rita didn't have anyone, or at least that's what she said. We're your family, said Sulamita, wracked with pity for Rita. We'll take care of you. She repeated that talk of family endlessly.

Do we need to say those things? I whispered in Sulamita's ear. Rita was sleeping, but I was afraid she was just faking. Of course we do, Sulamita answered. She's your cousin. She's not my cousin, I said, Carlão is my cousin. She
is
your cousin. And she could be lying on my table, said Sulamita. Instead of meeting her here, the most likely thing, considering what happened, was that I would receive her there, in the morgue, that way, you know how. Cold. But she's warm. We have to take care of her. Put your hand on her arm, it's warm, isn't it? And she repeated the question as if wanting assurance that Rita was alive. Touch is the real difference, she said. I mean, on my table the touch is the same, it's skin, it's flesh, but it's cold. It looks human, it is human, but the temperature says something else. Disgusting. That was the word she used. And Rita is warm, she continued; we have to be happy about that. Don't you think she's warm?

We spoke softly. Sulamita believed Rita was sleeping, but I saw in that swollen, purplish mouth a certain intent that I knew well, the beginning of Rita's smile, a pilot-smile, the smile of a hooker not worth a plug nickel.

When Rita was released, Sulamita went to fetch her at the hospital. I was loaded down with work at the Berabas' house, Dona Lu was being taken from one doctor to another, not only in Corumbá but also in Campo Grande, and I always went with her. She feels safe with you, the rancher had told me. Actually, José wasn't holding up under the strain. He couldn't bear seeing his wife being eaten alive by the worms of their son's death. Even the police, who earlier had said they would find the man, or the man's body, now held out no hope. They must be betting on the possibility of Junior having disappeared in the river. And José Beraba couldn't take any more suffering. He couldn't stand to see his wife suffer. He went off to his ranch and left his wife dying with me and Dalva. Every day there was a new health problem, a neck pain, another in the temples, in the neck and temples at the same time, her arms numb, tingling in the legs, tachycardia, vomiting, always some new symptom. And new doctors. If Junior were to appear, even dead, I knew the illness would go away. The same thing happened with my mother. At first the sickness is just a fiction, a kind of blackmail the body uses against the mind, and then, over time, it becomes a true cancer. That was what happened to my mother, right before my eyes. Pancreatic cancer. Metathesis. Dona Lu herself told me that for the last twenty-seven years her life had been to love that son. Everything else was secondary. God forgive me, she said, but after my son was born, even He, the Lord Almighty, took second place. First came my son, then everything else. God. Her husband. The memory of her beloved parents. Even herself. What's to become of
me? she asked Dalva in the middle of the night, when the cook came to keep her company during the rancher's travels. Her ailment was not yet a disease but a symptom that would become cancer in the future, called “Where is my son?”, “I want my son back,” “Return my son to me.” That was the problem.

I couldn't think about Rita. What are we going to do with her? Sulamita asked upon her release. Rita's a big girl, I replied, she can take care of herself.

That night, when I got to Sulamita's house, I couldn't believe it. Rita, with that slutty face of hers and those peeling red nails, was sitting at the table, dining with my family. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law. And my sister-in-law.

They received and treated Rita with the utmost affection. The utmost consideration. Rita slept in the same room as Regina and had her bed linen and clothes laundered. She needs to eat, said Sulamita's mother. She would bring Rita soup.

All that was making me crazy.

One day, when the two of us were alone in the living room, I said, Look here, Rita, if that stuff about the child being mine is true, you should know I'm not going to acknowledge anything. Take this dough, get that piece of shit out of your belly or else go fuck yourself. Have the brat somewhere far away from me. You don't have the right to fuck up Carlão's life and then fuck up mine. Your plan of serial fucking up our lives is over. Declare victory, I said.

I said these things to Rita expecting her to slap me and throw the money on the floor, but she didn't react. I almost didn't recognize Rita. And where was that laugh of hers?

She's trying to deceive you, over. It was in those days that I began feeling something odd, as if my internal radio, the one that was born inside me when I worked in telemarketing,
when I would spend entire days saying over, listening, it was as if that internal radio was beginning to work, to tell me things, independent of my will. A clandestine radio. An interior voice, something that was mine but at the same time independent, spontaneous, telling me: beware, danger. It said: she thinks you're a fool, that you were born yesterday, over. Danger. Danger, over.

My head felt like a pressure cooker. Everything worried me. Rita, Sulamita, Dona Lu, Moacir, the cocaine, everything.

Let's get out of here, I told Sulamita one Friday, and we went to spend the weekend at a bed and breakfast in the region. Moacir had just given me another wad of money and I didn't even consider economizing. Isn't it very expensive? asked Sulamita when we entered the reception area, a cozy setting with a large blue sofa and armchairs with floral patterns where a few tourists were planning outings. This must be very expensive, Sulamita whispered. I lied and said that Dona Lu was a member and had given us the weekend as a present. Sulamita wouldn't let me spend any more money. If we spend, she said, we don't save, and we can only move if we build our nest egg. And don't spend. Save and spend. And economize. She repeated that all the time like it was a prayer.