“The nun started inviting me to the pantry every day, saying she had cookies, fruit, candy. I didn’t even always feel like it. But since I was young, I just got right to it, fulfilled my duty in exchange for a few things, which at the time were delicacies to me.”
I had my last sip of coffee and thought about taking a walk around Viçoso. Listening to the story about the ravenous nun while sitting in that frock had left me in a state of discomfort I hoped to dispel by walking around outside.
When I walked past Antônio, who was still sitting in his chair, I realized that he must have been a good-looking man. Now he was used-up like me, missing a tooth on one side.
The frock was too short for me. Since I’d even sent my socks to be washed, my shins were bare, exposed, dirty old shoes on my feet. I’d have to be careful in case a wind kicked up the frock, since my underwear was also in the laundry.
After opening the door to the street I saw a decent-sized part of a splintered tree trunk lying neglected on the stone sidewalk. I picked it up, and thought it would make a great walking stick.
I went out leaning on it, almost as if I were blind, because no one in Viçoso would come close to the frock or a blind man’s staff—they’d leave a respectful aura around such a figure, so as not to disturb his solitary walk.
I went down the street with my eyes straight ahead, fixed. Every now and then I heard a “God Bless”—a greeting—I couldn’t help but notice a little girl’s timid gesture. I responded to nothing. I was an unknown figure with his staff; no one came very close.
Perhaps for some I was a man in constant touch with sacred spheres, who didn’t see the visible world. I also couldn’t help noticing an old woman with a demented expression get down on her knees as I passed.
When I got to Big Paul’s bar I realized where I was. I shielded my face with my hand so no one would recognize me.
Walking past, I looked between my fingers and from the corner of my eye saw a guy leaning against the bar that looked to me like Léo. I shut my fingers, shielding my eyes with them, as though protecting myself from the sun.
And if it were Léo, would Nélson be with him, hunting me?
I didn’t wait to find out, and kept moving, faster, but not so fast that anyone would get suspicious of anything. I took one of the side streets, thinking I’d slink along the edge of the village to get back to the parsonage.
I was almost at the end of the street, ready to hike up my frock and traipse down into the ravine that bordered Viçoso, when I heard a sob. I looked around and noticed that the last house on my right had its door open. That was where the sob had come from.
I went in. I saw a wrinkled old woman, crying. When she saw me she rushed over, saying God had sent me. She said her sister was dying in the bedroom, and God had sent me to give last rites to her sister, Diva.
The old woman took me to the bedroom by the hand. Her sister, Diva, looked even older, with dark blotches on her hands and face. She was moaning, and held a rosary in her hands.
I preferred not to give up my staff. I leaned over and waved my hand above her eyes, which were wide open. Her pupils didn’t react. The old woman who had guided me to her sister’s deathbed continued to cry. The moribund woman’s labored breathing came and went in what seemed to be her final gasps. When she inhaled it was accompanied by a spasm in her jaw. She was no longer moaning.
“Father, it’s time,” said the old woman who’d brought me.
Instinctively I knew I was lacking sacred oil or whatever. I pressed my right thumb onto my tongue, felt it moisten, and made a cross with it on the forehead, the mouth, and the chest of the dying woman. And then I said softly, “Go, Diva, go without fear, go…”
Then the old woman gave a sigh and died.
I left the dead woman’s house and went to the corner of the little side street and the main road. I surveilled the scene: there wasn’t anyone in front of Big Paul’s bar, everything seemed calm. I needed to be as careful as possible—it was the third death in my presence in just three or four days.
But performing the last rites had left me with a feeling of strength: yes, I’d walk back by way of the main street for all to see, without sneaking around the outskirts of Viçoso.
I resumed walking with my staff. The same gait as before: someone who can’t be bothered with worldly things, someone who tolerates the blindness that opens him to contact with other forces. Interrupting me would have amounted to an insult.
This time there wasn’t a single living soul at Big Paul’s bar.
I went into the parsonage through the patio gate. I saw a woman stretching out another sheet. Fat, with big boobs, her wet skirt sticking to her thighs. I remembered her name, Marisa. I stopped in front of her and said, “Marisa, was it sunny enough for my clothes to dry?”
“Almost, they’ll be dry in a little bit.”
I could tell that we were more or less hidden between the hanging sheets. I threw down my staff. She stared at me, a basin full of suds tucked between her hip and arm. I moved forward and kissed her neck. I heard the basin fall, opened her blouse buttons, and kissed her breasts. I lifted the wet skirt and squeezed her thighs—she wasn’t wearing underwear.
Marisa opened a few buttons on the frock and we both came standing up.
I entered the house through the kitchen. My crotch was wet. Antônio still sat in his usual chair. I pulled up a chair and sat down in front of him, and said, “Not a cloud in the sky, it’s going to stay hot.”
“You never asked me how I ended up here,” he said to me.
“I listen. I listen to everything—I don’t ask,” I said.
I had an uneasy premonition as I said it. I wanted only silence before leaving this house. But here was Antônio, my host, and he wanted me to know his life story.
Antônio went on, navigating the high seas of the South Pacific, sailing to an island called Naia.
“What a long trek,” I remarked.
He didn’t hear me. Then I saw him shrink back with a shudder, as if he’d been stabbed, twist in his seat, and fall, convulsing, to the floor. Drool ran out of his mouth. I called Marisa.
She came, and proceeded as though she were fulfilling a daily chore: she opened Antônio’s shirt and waited, kneeling by his side, for the attack to cease.
Then, when the body calmed and returned to normal, she wiped a handkerchief across Antônio’s mouth. And went back out to the patio.
Antônio got up by himself and sat in the old chair.
He had a tremendously lost look in his eyes, perhaps seeing the South Pacific. He didn’t seem to register my presence.
From the kitchen door I asked Marisa if I could put my clothes back on yet. I said with a little laugh that I was getting cooked alive in the frock. She said, yes, my clothes were dry, she only needed to iron them.
I went out to the patio. On tiptoe, I plucked an orange. I went back to the kitchen, got a knife. I sat down on the step between the kitchen and the patio, and began to peel the orange. I ate the orange the same way I always did, cutting off hunks with the knife.
Marisa appeared with my ironed clothes. I stayed seated on the stoop. My socks and underwear were on top of my folded shirt and pants. The blazer was hanging from one of her hands. I said she’d been very fast. She didn’t seem affected by the praise. She merely said she’d put my clothes on the bed where I’d slept. I craned my neck to watch as she walked away with such purpose that I only managed to see a flutter of her skirt disappearing down the hallway.
“It’s time for me to leave,” I murmured.
When I went into the bedroom I saw the clothes on top of the bed. I sat on the bed. I need to decide, I mused. Looked at the crucifix on the wall. Everything seemed to last for an infinity.
I closed the door and began taking off the frock. In two seconds I’d cast off the likeness of a priest. I was a man standing naked before a crucifix on a wall. I shivered.
I cupped my hand around my sex. Sticky. I wrapped myself in the sheet, w
alked quickly down the hall, went into the bathroom, and turned on the shower. I heard the grating sound of a sawmill.
When it was time to leave I went to say goodbye to Antônio. He was sitting in his eternal chair, in the same position as when I’d met him: legs crossed, staring at the door to the street. Only he didn’t seem to see me now. Glassy eyes facing the door.
His skin after the attack, withered.
I bent down, took his hand and kissed it. I felt him tremble.
Into his ear I said only this, “Thank you.”
And I withdrew.
When I went through the kitchen door there were some ducks at the foot of the doorway. At my appearance they squawked and left en masse. I saw Marisa between the hanging sheets. I felt a dart of passion. But I wanted to eat lunch on the road, and it was getting pretty late.
So I only gave her a soft kiss on the mouth and said I was leaving. She didn’t seem bothered. I put some money in her hand, for the trouble of washing my clothes.
I opened the patio gate. A dog was barking at the heels of a horse going by. Mounted on the horse was a boy of about twelve, dressed as prince charming—a blue cape descended from his shoulders. There must be a school party, I guessed.
I stopped for a while in the shadow of a tree, huffing and puffing from the heat. I did this because I figured the residents of Viçoso would like someone who behaved so demonstratively.
Like this child on the porch of the cottage in front of me. Spinning, jumping, at times peering in one of the windows. Since almost no one else was passing along the streets of Viçoso, the girl took a moment to size me up, and she was smiling. I don’t know if she was happy for some reason, all I know is she was smiling, and when she saw me she didn’t stop, and her smile included me too, so I smiled as well.
And with that smile on my lips I began to walk once more.
As I left Viçoso, descending like a vagabond into the ravine that bordered the city, I heard thunder, a hollow sound coming from the line of the horizon, where I saw a very dark storm brewing, which made me wonder if I wasn’t committing a blunder by confronting it.
I spat on the red earth. I got the feeling I was accepting a challenge. Then scraped my foot over the saliva.
When I next took note, the monumental mass of dark clouds was already looming overhead. I turned around, knowing I was looking at Viçoso for the last time. Everything I’d lived through in Viçoso flashed by in an instant, as if I needed to take a quick account of everything to feel like I was actually ready to leave.
Viçoso looked much different beneath the dark mass—it was difficult to imagine Marisa underneath that sky. Antônio might not withstand the weight of the clouds and might have died already.
I felt the first drops of rain on my skin. The smell of wet earth took to the air.
With the rain came the cold—winter’s return. Even so, I kept walking away from Viçoso. Drenched, I found a narrow path and went down it.
It gave the impression of a dark night having fallen, so dark I couldn’t read the time off my watch. But by my calculations it couldn’t have been past mid-afternoon.
From time to time bright lightning flashed, allowing me to see the immensity that lay ahead. It was thundering. A bolt of lightning struck nearby and rumbled in the earth—I cringed. In one of the flashes I saw a nude tree beside some kind of shack.
I ran toward the little cottage, pushed against the door—it creaked, opened. It was dark, with no human noise. Cattle were lowing nearby. Toads croaked ceaselessly.
As soon as I got inside I hunkered down to the left of the door. I stayed there for a long time, calmly listening to the storm and hugging my body, which trembled from the cold.
I listened to the rain die down and then stop. My sight was restored by the returning light, which wasn’t very bright, since it was already the end of the afternoon. I emerged from the shack and there was a full rainbow cutting across the dusky sky.
The atmosphere, now without a trace of wind, seemed crystallized by the cold, and was chilling me to the bone. Water was dripping from my entire body. My shaking intensified, and a deep cough set in; I decided to keep going.
It was already night when I saw some lights in the distance. It had been a long time since I’d hiked on dirt paths through open country or fallen into rain puddles. The terrain was now almost a swamp, and, with tremendous difficulty lifting my legs to take each step, I went toward those lights.
The lights grew larger, multiplied. As I drew near I saw it was a small city. There wasn’t anybody on the streets, not a single car passing. Sidewalks wet, flooded in some places. A church steeple. A building that housed a newspaper called the Arraiol Daily. Someone was listening to an opera nearby.
I felt a pang in my chest. Then a coughing fit. For a moment my head reeled.
I knocked on a door. A woman wrapped in a quilt opened the door, looked me over—noticing I was all wet and covered with mud—and slammed the door with a scream. Then I heard her yell, “It’s the kidnapper, help!”
I backed away from the house. Then I hastily turned around and saw in front of me the house from which the music emerged. I decided to give it another shot: I knocked on the door.
A fat, bald man opened the door. The record was turning out a nasal twang. The voice of a tenor. When the man took in my muddy state he pulled a gun from his pocket. And aimed at me.
Once more I backed away. Much more slowly this time, without twitching a finger. Now the voice was a soprano.
I thought it might be better to keep walking, at least to stay warm. From the end of the street a black and white Volkswagen police car approached, the red light on top spinning.
This spinning red light was the last thing I saw. I steadied myself on an iron gate and felt the strength drain out of me. I heard my head knock against the pavement.
When I opened my eyes the fat, bald man was beside me. Even with my foggy head, I could see he was smiling with delight.
There was a needle in my arm, which appeared to be injecting some kind of serum.
The bald guy came close to my ear and said he was the chief surgeon in Arraiol. His eighteen-year-old daughter had devoured celebrity magazines about soap stars since she was ten years old. She’d recognized me.
I tried to sit up, but my whole body hurt, and the surgeon’s hands pressed me down.
Then he left. And then came a searing pain from my right leg. It felt like a lightning bolt tore through my body from my leg and lodged in my brain.
Before asking for an anesthetic, a sedative, I concentrated all my barely existent strength to lifting my head: they had amputated my right leg.
A black nurse appeared and stuck a needle in the vein of my free arm.
The next time I awoke there was a pretty girl beside me, holding my hand. She had a cold hand, a pale smile, and the look of someone who truly suffered. Blondish, with green eyes.
She told me she was the surgeon’s daughter. She’d recognized me during one of her customary visits to the hospital, and all of Arraiol was rooting for me, praying for my rehabilitation.
“They amputated my right leg,” I said.
She told me it was a last resort. Her father had had to do it.
Suddenly I felt the spark of a hope that all this might just be a nightmare. I got the familiar feeling that somebody was merely acting, in this case the girl. So, to then banish all doubt, I marshaled all possible energy, and thrust what should have been my right leg.
It didn’t hurt as much now, but I had the clear sensation of only moving a short stump. The rest of the leg—the part that had existed below the stump—had preceded me in death. I raised my head and saw what I would continue seeing for the rest of my life: I was missing my right leg.
The end of the stump was bandaged.
I couldn’t prevent tears from springing to my eyes, and the surgeon’s daughter called out for Sebastião, the black nurse, so he could quickly sedate me, because I shouldn’t suffer any additional distress.
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The next time I woke, the nurse was close by, watching me. He gave me back my wallet. I’d forgotten all about it. Inside there was some money and my ID. Everything was still a bit wet from the storm I’d been caught in before arriving at this place they call Arraiol. I had only a vague recollection of the storm. The nurse said that, in a few days, my wallet and everything inside it would be dry.
After that he told me Dr. Carlos—the doctor who had performed my surgery, father of the girl Diana whom I’d met—had stayed close by to observe me until recently.
The nurse also told me about an interview Dr. Carlos had given to a newspaper in Arraiol; all about the good press he’d gotten off my case. The procedure—this was how they referred to the amputation—had been the right decision. I’d soon be back in front of the TV cameras.
“To play the part of Saci Pererê,” I said, in the flat tone I used whenever I tried to be funny.
“I have to admit that I didn’t recognize you from TV,” the nurse said.
“I did a few roles on soap operas, but that was back then I was a good-looking guy whose likeness graced the covers of magazines.”
The nurse said he’d give me a bath now. My only clothing was a rather long piece of linen, tied in three places in the back. He asked me to roll to one side so he could untie it.
He undressed me very carefully and started to run a soapy sponge over my body.
During my bath I saw my uncovered stump for the first time. It was still deep purple, a huge wound on the end. It occurred to me that I’d better say something to try and forget the sudden nausea, “I think I heard Diana call you Sebastião,” I recalled.
“My name is Sebastião,” he confirmed, passing the sponge across my belly.
Then he wiped a warm cloth over my body to remove any remaining suds. He was saying it was Sunday, and that afternoon there’d be a game on TV. It was a friendly game, Brazil against Argentina, in Buenos Aires.
“Where are we? Where exactly is Arraiol?” I remembered to ask.
“Ah, my friend, still a bit of amnesia?” he said, smiling.
Atlantic Hotel Page 5
