I spent the last year thinking I was suffering from lovesickness, but it was anger. I don’t forgive you for being mean. I was an extraordinary, patient husband, a good father. What else did you want? The name for your acidity is vanity, Célia. I’m better than you. More humane, without a doubt. I’d have left you in peace; I wouldn’t have spent a year prowling around your head, needling you, I wouldn’t have come back here to commit euthanasia. Go fuck yourself, Célia. Take your things, disappear, and don’t come back.
I attack the wardrobe, grab her clothes, hurl them out the window, return to the bathroom, throw her toothbrush into the toilet, and try to flush it down. I rummage through her things, tear up photos, kick boxes, hurl her shoes across the room. Another pang, the memory of the pain makes me double over. I regurgitate pills. I vomit in the maid’s room. I drag myself to the bed and relax my head on the pillow. I’m not leaving here.
Wrath, finally, wrath. In recent months I’d forgotten how much I detested Célia. What a shame—now I want to carry on without her. It won’t be possible. It would have been good. What a stupid thing I’ve done. My extremities grow numb, nothing moves, I have no more reflexes. All that is left is my thinking head, my bleary eyes, and my dry, bitter mouth.
Alone at last.
Padre Graça rose before dawn. He prayed, bathed, ate only a little, as he’d been trained to do, and arranged his liturgical objects in his small valise. São João Batista Cemetery awaited him.
He had recently assumed the position of chaplain at Rio de Janeiro’s most traditional cemetery. It was a sin, he knew, but he couldn’t contain his pride. With all due respect to John the Baptist, he identified more with Peter, gatekeeper of the eternal home. Padre Graça opened the earthly gates so that the saint could finish the job in heaven. Before getting to work, he liked to stroll through the lanes, admiring the ornate tombs and plaques paying homage to the dead. Occasionally he would change the dead flowers. On his way back to the chapel, after praying at the Sisters of São Vicente de Paulo quarter, he would visit Carmen Miranda, Villa-Lobos, and Luís Carlos Prestes. He was moved to come across Bento Ribeiro and Ary Barroso. It was paradise.
At the front office, he was informed that there were practically no services that day. In the morning, a middle-aged man, victim of a malignant tumor, and in the afternoon, an older gentleman. He donned his liturgical garments and climbed the stairs. Carpe diem. He wanted to take advantage of the fact that it wasn’t a busy day and go all out on the prayer. In the corridor, he passed the funeral home staff—the deceased had just been sent to Chapel Ten. Padre Graça peered through a crack in the door. He didn’t want to interrupt at the wrong moment. Three men were decorating the room. The tallest was arranging the lacy frills around the bier, while the bald one and the tanned one were discussing the best place to put the two wreaths behind the coffin. One had the short inscription: “In loving memory, from João,” while the other read: “Friends forever, Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro.” It was from the three men. Satisfied with the arrangement, they gazed at the gloomy composition. They were suffering.
Thinking this was the right moment, Padre Graça introduced himself and asked for details about Ciro. The ceremony required a summary of the deceased’s life, and the priest wanted to prepare something special for the occasion. They gave him the basics: place of birth, age, marital status, profession, the name of his son, João, and cause of death. “He didn’t even last six months,” said Neto, unable to contain his emotion. They couldn’t go on. Padre Graça tried to get additional information out of them, he formulated phrases, gave suggestions. “A good friend?” They agreed that yes, Ciro had been a good friend. “A good father?” Yes, they assured him he’d been a good father. But no description really did him justice.
Ciro was lust, beauty, irrationality. He was virginal love, adolescence, a man par excellence. The inventory of “good this and good that” wouldn’t stop them from pining for the drinking binges, the wild nights, the attraction to the women he’d had. Ciro, Mr. Priest, was the quintessential Latin lover, the boxing champion, the Orpheus of Carnival, the faun, Cupid in person. Ciro was a god to the three of them. A fucking good-looking god, and flawed, because he was mortal. With nothing further to add, they hung their heads and consoled one another.
“Would any of you like to participate in the service?” Graça asked the laconic members of the flock.
Their refusal was unanimous. They reacted as one and fell silent at the same time, as if guided by telepathy.
“If Sílvio were here…” murmured Álvaro timidly.
Padre Graça had the impression they were laughing. They were. If the ambassador were here, they thought, lacking the courage to confess it to the priest, he’d be the one to deliver the eulogy. With his habitual calm and the aristocratic flair he’d acquired in the diplomatic service, Sílvio would challenge the prevailing moral code, shock relatives, and make Ciro’s infinite lovers, who really did attend the funeral, blush. He would point out Ruth’s absence, and tell the story of the couple’s love and damnation. He would condemn monogamy. He would cite, one by one, the warrior’s conquests and confess his own carnal attraction to his friend. Addressing Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro, he would decree the end of that group and finish by proposing an orgy in Glória, in memory of their late friend. Then they remembered, with sorrow, that they couldn’t count on Sílvio’s eloquence. By now, if they knew him at all, their balding blond pal, escorted by those mercenaries from the south, would be halfway to Bolivia on horseback, chewing coca leaves and practicing the Kama Sutra with the cholas of the Incan Empire.
“If you change your mind,” insisted the priest, “come see me so we can discuss the timing.”
And he left, focused on his notes, rehearsing the sermon in a low voice. Padre Graça was convinced that half a dozen phrases picked at random could relieve mourners’ hearts. But from the difficulty he’d had with the trio, he gathered that “outstanding father,” “exemplary husband,” and “faithful companion” didn’t exactly fit Ciro. He decided to focus on his premature death. He thought it would be a good idea to talk about acceptance and coming to terms with what seemed unjust.
* * *
“Let us meditate on eternity, and may we continue to realize that which God has placed in our hands. Let us do what is good and right.”
When he finished quoting the passage, he was bursting with faith. He was a believer. Still a novice, he had assisted in one of the masses celebrated by the Saintly Pope, during John Paul II’s visit to Brazil. He had confirmed, there, his calling. Ten years later, Padre Graça was at the height of his Catholic enthusiasm, to the point of having visions like those of Saint Thérèse when he locked himself, alone, at night, in the cloister of a monastery in downtown Rio. In his ecstasy, he didn’t notice that his listeners weren’t paying attention. With the exception of Célia and one or two other elderly women, the dead man was surrounded by a front of practicing atheists. People who, in the desperation of the here and now, had lost all notion of what was good, honest, and upright.
Álvaro was gloating at seeing Irene left high and dry, dropped by the rowing club heartthrob. Neto and his wife weren’t speaking by the time they arrived. She had made a snide remark about Ciro just before they left, and Neto had reacted by slapping her across the face. Ribeiro cursed the deceased for Ruth’s ruin. João preferred to sit at a distance from his father’s body, and Raquel, if she could have, would have spat in her ex-brother-in-law’s face for allowing her nephew to take a back seat to the egotistical love that he and her crazy sister had shared. No one was thinking of Jesus, much less eternity. Cinira, the chubby girl from the office, was mourning the end of coffee-break escapades with her boss. Lílian was burying the pain of being dumped by Ciro on the Sunday of the roast chicken, and Milena was hobbling with the help of a cane, a result of the bullets her ex had put through her.
An admirable collection of adulteresses decked out the session with cleavage, silk stockings, and stilettos: a
parade of coy gazes from Martas, Clarices and Gogoyas, plagued by sinful memories. God wasn’t present, but Padre Graça didn’t notice.
Without Ruth there, Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro accepted the condolences of those who knew Ciro from volleyball, from university, from the beach, colleagues from the office, old clients, and the succession of heartbroken women that never ceased to stream through the door. Middle-aged funerals are always the busiest.
With so many widows present, death slipped in unnoticed. When the priest asked for a moment of silence so that everyone might reflect on what was right, a fair-skinned brunette, not very tall, pushed her way through the crowd and only stopped when she leaned over the casket. Ciro. Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro followed the apparition with their eyes. We don’t know that one, they thought. She was wearing a tight-waisted dress of shiny black velvet that showed off her generous hips. She gazed upon the dead man with an indecent, superior, consummated love. It was an irresistible sight. For the last time, they felt envious of their Don Juan.
She could barely recognize her victim’s face in the light of the chapel, far from the hospital room and the tubes in his veins. He was better-looking like this than in bed, she thought. She had a thing for men in suits. Ciro’s body was no exception. The trio continued to watch her attentively. The woman noticed the large turnout of female mourners and stopped to size them up. None of them had been as important as her. She was the widow there. She continued scrutinizing the room until she noticed Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro staring at her from the other side of the coffin. Padre Graça threw himself into the Lord’s Prayer, but none of them were paying attention. Death admired the trio’s elegance, their careful tie knots. Were they brothers? No, they were too different to have come from the same womb. She wanted to go to bed with all three of them. And then kill them, when the time was ripe. What else should she do? She had woken up like that, feeling generous. If she could choose, she’d take care of Neto first, then the others. She imagined him lying in bed, with her administering the sacrament. The mysterious figure’s perverse gaze made Neto blush, and his two pals noticed. Célia noticed too. She hadn’t taken her eyes off her husband, convinced that the five shared their furtive affairs. The insinuation had cost her the slap across the face, but now the slutty little widow justified Célia’s desire to get him far away from there. She strode over to her husband, hooked her arm through his, and shot the rival a dirty look. The goddess scoffed at the shrew’s vulgar jealously. She prayed that Célia would expire before everyone else present. Coincidence or not, Neto would lose his wife the following year, and would die a year later himself.
“Amen,” said the priest, and signaled for the procession to start.
Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro shared the coffin handles with Ciro’s colleagues from work. The lover no one knew made a point of going ahead of the cortège. The exterminating angel, the Nike of Samothrace, led the black wings of the procession.
They gathered around a grave at the bottom of a slope, at the back of the cemetery, looking out over the sea of headstones. Ciro was deposited at the foot of his grave.
Padre Graça took the shovel and proceeded with the difficult words: “Take from this world the soul of our brother departed. We commit his body to the ground. Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The spirit belongs to God. This is the end point of a life. In the grave there is no work, or knowledge, or wisdom, and we all arrive here sooner or later.”
* * *
When? He didn’t say. Who cared about boring eternity? Everyone in it would have traded a thousand years of the Lord’s peace for five minutes more of earthly torture. Ciro had shown Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro that it could be any one of them, at any time and any place. They made calculations, trying to figure the distance between them and the end. It would take Padre Graça some time yet to voice his ire at heaven’s indifference.
“Who’s next?” he would bellow at Álvaro’s funeral, twenty-four years later, to the dismay of Irene, who wouldn’t remember that idiot from Ciro’s funeral.
Álvaro, Neto, and Ribeiro watched as the coffin was lowered into the grave, Ciro’s mortality looming menacingly over them. Who would be next? The simple fact of not wanting the worst for themselves meant wishing the worst for the other two. They avoided looking at one another. They left single-file with the rest of the group and said their goodbyes outside the cemetery. Irene didn’t speak to Álvaro and Célia went to get the car from the parking lot. Only the three friends were left.
None of them had visited Ciro in the weeks preceding his death. “I could have sworn he’d pull through,” Neto had confessed when he called Álvaro and Ribeiro to give them the news. Although he stopped visiting, Neto had kept in touch with the head nurse and knew Ciro’s condition had deteriorated. Álvaro and Ribeiro were silent on the phone. Neto proposed that they make the funeral arrangements. “It’s the least we can do,” he said. He was martyring himself over his cowardice, for not being able to bear to watch Ciro’s decline. His visits to the hospital had given rise to panic attacks, dizziness, and the shakes, and his wife had eventually convinced him to step back. If Neto felt guilty, Álvaro was a well of regret. He fretted about how cold he’d been at their last lunch, and his unfulfilled promise to visit Ciro in the hospital. He was disgusted with himself. Ribeiro was the last to give up. He had visited his friend until they sedated him. On two occasions, he had stayed in the room for over an hour, listening to Ciro’s steady breathing and the beeps from the equipment. There was no use insisting; he preferred to reflect on his friend’s tragedy out of doors, looking at the sea and the soaring gulls.
They hugged one another, ashamed. They had betrayed their friend. And now they were trying to redeem themselves, taking care of what was left of him. They would see each other a week later, at the seventh day mass, but there was no longer any sign of their old intimacy.
It had ended there.
Neto, unable to bear his wife’s absence, would sink into depression the following year. Álvaro and Ribeiro would still try and catch a movie together, with pathetic results. At Neto’s funeral, they would exchange formal waves. A veiled competition, which had begun at Ciro’s wake and had been exacerbated by Neto’s death, had placed them on opposing sides. The mere existence of one threatened the survival of the other. Álvaro was sure he’d be first; Ribeiro had no doubt about it. His physical superiority placed him at an advantage and he revealed an arrogance that was entirely new to him. They were both wrong in their predictions. Decades later, when they crossed paths on Rua Francisco Sá, having forgotten their rivalry, they talked about getting together, but Ribeiro died of a heart attack the next day.
They bade each other farewell with embarrassed hugs and left, heads hanging. Neto hailed a cab, but decided not to take it. Álvaro and Ribeiro stopped to watch the woman in black leave the cemetery. They had forgotten about her, as she had remained at the graveside after everyone had left. The apparition turned right and strode away, bathed in the light broken up by the fence.
* * *
The diva continued her long walk down to Rua Venceslau Brás. When she caught a whiff of the ocean, she hesitated, deciding whether to turn right, toward Aterro do Flamengo Park, or left, to Sugarloaf Mountain. She chose Sugarloaf Mountain. She was light, she wanted to fly. She took the cable car up and observed the city from above, the zigzagging of cars, the anthill of pedestrians, the planes taking off for São Paulo from Santos Dumont Airport. Never again would a death take place without her consent. The solar barge hid itself behind Christ the Redeemer, carrying Ciro’s soul to the underworld of Apophis. Maria Clara waited for the star to complete its celestial arch. It was her bidding.
Ciro
* February 2, 1940
† August 4, 1990
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?”
&n
bsp; 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.
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