The End

by Fernanda Torres

  Júlio had explained that I shouldn’t be alone, I’d need someone there with me at the hospital. But my son was too young, my dad was dead, my mother was too frail to take the news, and I don’t have any brothers or sisters. I thought of Álvaro. He was always depressed, it might do him good to know that I was worse off. I arranged to meet him for coffee. I insisted that it be at lunchtime, as I had something to tell him. Already regretting it, I placed the phone on the hook. Álvaro was singularly selfish, mean, and cowardly. He’d never do anything for me, much less sleep on a tiny sofa beside someone who was terminally ill. I needed Ruth.

  I don’t know why I did what I did. It was instinct, my dick, my head, the head of my dick. I don’t know. But the moment Júlio handed down my sentence, I realized that I’d begun to die way back at Irene’s cousin’s party, when I locked eyes with Ruth and we were sucked into the maelstrom.

  I dialed the old number, the sequence I knew by heart. I hadn’t dared dial it for four years. Raquel answered. I hung up. I went to meet Álvaro. The restaurant was empty, lunch service almost over. I sat at a table by the window and waited. While I was there I said goodbye to the beach and the salt air. The last time I set eyes on the sea. Álvaro arrived shortly afterward. He was strapped for time; it was March, and tax returns were due in. He said he had left a pile of declarations waiting for him at the office and complained about his meager salary.

  “So many people depend on me,” he argued. “They should pay me better. What if I decide to take revenge one day?”

  I feigned amusement. I remembered the form that, with everything else going on, I’d forgotten in a drawer. What if I make it out alive? I thought. I’ll get caught in an audit. Better to die in the hospital. I started the conversation there, with taxes, which was the only reality he cared about:

  “I won’t be able to turn mine in this year.”

  He looked at me in shock, as if tax returns were something sacred.

  “I’ve been too busy this last month.”

  “The problem is that you all leave it till the last minute,” he interrupted glibly. “You want a hand? Is that why you called me?”

  “No, Álvaro. I’m not going to declare my earnings because I don’t know if I’ll be here tomorrow.”

  He stared at me, confused.

  “They’ve found a tumor and I’m going under the knife to have the thing removed. I go in today and I don’t have anyone to stay with me at the hospital.”

  I stopped there, unable to ask if he’d come with me. Álvaro’s panic was almost obscene. He leaned back from the table as if he was afraid of catching it. Cancer isn’t contagious, asshole. He glanced from side to side, wanting to get the hell out of there, barely able to disguise his discomfort.

  “Don’t you think you should get a second opinion?”

  “There isn’t time, Álvaro. I’ve come to say goodbye,” I lied. “I haven’t told anyone, you’re the first.”

  He didn’t look remotely flattered. He preferred not to know.

  “And did they say what caused it? Cigarettes, alcohol, is there a family history?” he insisted, sizing up his own risks, concerned with himself, as we all are.

  “There’s no logic to it, it’s Russian roulette. I got the chamber with the bullet in it.”

  The coffee came and we waited for the waiter to leave.

  “Are you going to tell Ruth?”

  “No,” I replied.

  An uncomfortable silence followed by Álvaro’s “Gotta go” ended the encounter.

  “Of course, I don’t want to keep you.”

  “It’s no hassle, Ciro, really. It’s just that I didn’t know. You should have told me, I’d have canceled everything, I’d have arranged something.”

  Liar. He was relieved to have an excuse to get away.

  “I’ll come see you, are you allowed visitors? Which hospital is it?”

  That was the last time I saw Álvaro. He never showed up. Right after paying for coffee—he insisted on paying—he put a hand on my shoulder, gave me an awkward hug, and apologized for the question he wanted to ask.

  “Can I?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Do you think it was punishment?”

  Álvaro came across as an idiot, but he was deep, and tragic. I felt an unconditional love for him. I had no doubt it was punishment. And it comforted me, it gave order to the confusing sequence of chance events that had brought me there.

  “If it isn’t punishment, Álvaro, God doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

  I was sorry he wasn’t coming with me. That afternoon, on my way to the hospital, I climbed the sloping streets of Santa Teresa for the last time and saw the wet forest, Rio from up high.

  It’s been three months.

  They cut out a third of my liver, three feet of intestine, my pancreas, and my gallbladder, all at one go. Then they stitched me back up and stuck me in this bed here. Júlio feigns optimism and I pretend to trust him. I haven’t seen Fialho since just after the operation. I lie, he pops his head in from time to time, on his way to another bloodbath. Fialho is disgustingly vain. He likes to show CT scans of his victim’s viscera while describing the torture he inflicts in detail. He should be locked away. He is self-important, a snob, Arian—a deplorable, inhumane being. He disappeared when the oncologists took over. Fialho can’t handle the competition, he has an inferiority complex. He knows he’s just a glorified plumber. I survived Fialho and now Júlio is free to kill me with radiation.

  You go into the hospital with one illness and there you contract numerous others that are far worse—opportunistic, chronic, agonizing. I fell victim to fungi, viruses, bacteria, amoebas, germs—the whole kit and caboodle. Cystitis made me pee blood. They stuck a probe in my dick, a catheter in my chest, and a drainage tube in my lungs. My hair’s fallen out and I haven’t eaten for a week. I’m very weak. I drag my feet down the corridor—they call it exercise. I need help to go to the bathroom and I’m always clutching my IV pole. The pole, my faithful lover. A clothesline of plastic bags filling me with poison. Antifungals, antibiotics, antivirals, anti, anti, anti, no pros.

  I told Júlio that I didn’t have anyone who could stay with me and he hired a companion service. I never knew what it was to pay for company, now I do. There are three of them who take turns. Eneida, Gisa, and Maria Clara. Eneida is a good-humored older woman who knows how to be tough on desperate days. Gisa is distant, I don’t care for her, and Maria Clara has just started, replacing Lívia, who is pregnant and can’t be in a hospital environment anymore. I liked Lívia.

  I don’t know anything about Maria Clara; we haven’t had time to get to know each other. She’s young, pretty, and must have a boyfriend. I’ve been spaced out. The fungus is in my lungs, the cystitis has reached my kidneys, and I still have dozens of sessions of chemo to go. They upped my morphine dosage this week. Júlio didn’t tell me anything, and he didn’t need to, because I know when I’m high. And hurting. Which is why I’m down, because I’m hurting. Sílvio would like that. I anxiously await my next dose and exaggerate what I’m feeling, to see if they’ll double it. Nothing more terrifying than a whole day of being bedridden ahead of you, followed by a night of poor sleep. God bless morphine, relief for the pain and the idling hours.

  Why does it take so long? I want to switch off, forget, get out of here.

  * * *

  I woke up beside Ruth; it was a day like every other. But I woke up before her, which wasn’t normal. I just lay there, looking at her. There wasn’t a square inch of that woman that I didn’t know. I had visited every crease and orifice of her. For so many years we had explored new territories in an infinite succession of first times. The elevator was just the beginning of it all. When we became mature lovers, married and uninhibited, the desire to start a family gave us a second wind. We fucked solemnly, with emotion. And her breasts full of milk, and the joy of having made someone who was half-her, half-me, it all washed over us like a warm wave for so many years. But that day, staring
at her in bed, I realized there was nothing left to be discovered. She still looked good, it had nothing to do with appearance. I was surprised to discover that nothing in me, not a single hair or pore, not one, miserable cell, longed for her in the slightest. Ruth opened her eyes and was surprised to see me awake. She smiled. I got up to start the day.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “Nope.”

  “I know you.”

  That was the problem with Ruth—we knew each other too well.

  After work I called Neto and we met at Amarelinho. Sílvio had just separated and Álvaro was still with Irene, who was Ruth’s confidant, and I didn’t want anything to get back to Ruth.

  “Do you still like having sex with Célia?” I asked.

  Neto was surprised at the bluntness of the question, laughed, thought about it, then replied sincerely.

  “I don’t think about it, I guess so, I don’t know. This is my life, I don’t have any other.”

  “But don’t you miss the unknown, Neto? The chase? The danger? The anonymous sex? Uncertainty about the next time?”

  He explained that he felt a familiar affection for Célia, he liked the tidy house, seeing his kids leave for school, and having someone to sleep beside.

  “The sex is good. The sex is still good. It’s a little methodical, it’s true, mechanical, but it always has been. Célia’s very conventional. It’s the same ritual, which works for both of us: we come together, I know how to wait for her, I think I’m satisfied. I must be, because I don’t think about it.”

  The sickness was mine. I suspected that the romantic fury that devoured me in the elevator had come to collect now, so many years later. I wouldn’t be able to survive with Neto’s resignation.

  I opened the door of the apartment. I wasn’t myself, I was someone else. She noticed and asked if everything was okay. I told her that I was okay, that I’d already said I was okay, and that what didn’t make me okay was the fact that she wanted to know if I was okay. I went into the bathroom, slammed the door, and took a long shower. When I came out, Ruth was in the living room watching TV. João was in bed. I headed for the bedroom, climbed under the sheets, turned out the light, and rolled over, annoyed at myself. Why had I done that?

  I didn’t dream. I woke up with her beside me, staring at the ceiling.

  “I was waiting for you to wake up,” she said.

  A heavy shroud had descended over us, as unexpected and intense as our previous love, but different, bleak, devastating. I sat up with my back to her, thought about saying something, but didn’t. I went to brush my teeth. She waited for me to come back and demanded an explanation.

  “It’s nothing, Ruth.”

  “How is it nothing, Ciro? Is it something I did?”

  “No, you didn’t do anything.”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  “The problem, Ruth, is our marriage.”

  She paled as if she’d received news of a death. If we stayed there wallowing, it’d be worse—it was worse already. The awkwardness of the previous day had yielded fruit: phrases, fights, and questioning. The blood flow had to be stanched.

  “I’m going to work, Ruth, and I think you should do the same. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry, I’ve got an appointment downtown, we can talk tonight.”

  She didn’t go to work.

  I saw clients, resolved some problems at the district court, dusk came, night fell. I headed into the streets as if there was no one. What if that was my life? Ten years after the hurricane I was becoming myself again, as I had always been, before being swallowed by her. I wandered down Rua do Ouvidor, Cinelândia Square, and hailed a cab when I was almost at Aterro do Flamengo Park. Princesa Isabel, I said. I got out at Frank’s Bar. I sat on a sofa at the back. Two naked girls were gyrating and bending over on the stage. I ordered a whiskey and just let myself be. I was free. One girl asked if she could sit with me, but I wanted to be by myself, so she turned and went to a table by the stage, where a guy with a beard was drinking Campari. The strippers finished their number and a couple came on holding a faded sheet. They were married—it was obvious they were married, you could see it in the passive way they spread out the sheet and lay down on the stage. It was a sad scene. He wasn’t all that into it, which meant he had to squeeze the base of his dick to keep it erect. She wasn’t pretty and had a small, banal body, like so many others. It must have been the umpteenth time they’d fucked that day. And although they were being paid to have sex, their faces were expressionless, bored, cold. Intimacy destroys the libido, I was certain. That was Ruth and I. The two of us. What marriage had done to us. There’s no going back, I thought. I left a tip on the table, stood, and exited the club feeling restless. Thank God for car exhaust. I hurried to a public phone and called Sílvio. We arranged to meet at Antonio’s Bar. I got there first. The same old rowdy mob. Free men, as I wanted to be again. One, red from too much malt, was euphorically narrating how Tarso de Castro had hit on Candice Bergen. Where have I been all these years? I thought. Everyone screwing everyone else, and here I am in this dead-end fidelity.

  Sílvio arrived in high spirits. He was meeting someone later. He was radiant, as I hadn’t seen him in a long time.

  “’Sup, Ciro?”

  “You tell me… How’s single life treating you?”

  “If it gets any better, it’ll spoil it.”

  And he chortled as he waved the head waiter over.

  “A Black Label, please. So how’s that storybook romance of yours? Make me jealous.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. I didn’t want to talk about Ruth.

  “Your life’s so perfect, Ciro, that sometimes I want to spit in your face.”

  Sílvio gave a brotherly laugh, shaking the ice in his glass, then took a sip and changed tone. He leaned over the table and signaled for me to do the same.

  “If I tell you something, promise you won’t tell anyone?”

  I promised. Sílvio gave a naughty smile.

  “I’m counting on you, man, you promised! It’s a big deal. Old Sílvio here is enjoying springtime, Ciro. I survived the harsh winter. After putting up with the mother-in-law’s mug, Norma’s prayers, those annoying kids, the smell of garlic at breakfast, I’m myself again, Ciro. If I’d stayed in that marriage, Ciro, I’d have become a eunuch; my dick would’ve shrunk, withered into a raisin. Neto can take it ’cause he’s got more than he needs, but I can’t afford to waste any. You’re lucky, you married Ruth, but I got sick of Norma in a month. I stuck around because she was still in working condition, but we’ve got zip in common. And, now, here’s the secret. You listening?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The shit hit the fan because a snob from Ribeirão squealed to Norma’s mother that I was having an affair with a hippie from Bauru. Know who the hippie from Bauru is, Ciro?”

  “No, Sílvio, I don’t know who the hippie from Bauru is.”

  “Secret?”

  “Secret.”

  “Don’t you want to guess?”

  “No.”

  “It’s Suzana.”

  “Suzana who?”

  “What do you mean, ‘Suzana who?’”

  “The Suzana with the joint. Ribeiro’s Suzana, for fuck’s sake!”

  The revelation came as no surprise. From Sílvio, you could expect anything, and from that girl, nothing less. But the bit about the eunuch really got to me. A vision of castration.

  “It’s her that I’m going to meet. Her and a friend of hers, Brites.”

  And he made a repugnant, snakelike movement with his tongue to indicate that he was sleeping with both of them. I’d always found Sílvio’s way of talking about sex disgusting. Whenever he drank, he’d get all handsy with everyone, very suspicious. My idea of happiness was different to his. Certainly more conservative. I never humiliated my friends for being what I was. I was born ridiculously good-looking, and a nice guy—women shook with anticipation, without any effort on my part. I’d been locked in
a stable for ten years, but not anymore. Sílvio was right.

  “To springtime!” we toasted.

  We left Antonio’s Bar tipsy and went on foot to the restaurant where Suzana was having seafood with Brites.

  “Mussels…” he said slyly, opening an imaginary shell and repeating the reptile tongue.

  “I get it, Sílvio.”

  “From there, they’re going to a party that some theater folk are throwing. You’re not going home tonight, Ciro, I forbid you. Tomorrow, have Ruth call me and I’ll tell her why a stud like you has to be shared with the rest of humanity.”

  “Tell her, Sílvio, you tell her that.”

  We met Suzana and Brites at the restaurant and went to an old mansion in Santa Teresa.

  The world had changed a lot since the last time I’d been out. The androgyny was alarming. Creatures both male and female. Everyone feeling up anyone within reach. I turned down the quaalude that Sílvio offered me; I thought it best to stay sober. As soon as we got there, two queers who made their living sewing fanny packs came over with languid eyes, asking if there was more where I came from. I laughed and they gave little squeals. A flock of stocky girlfriends heard the call and crowded around to admire me with endlessly wandering hands. Sílvio came to my rescue and shooed them away, saying I needed to breathe. We headed to the dance floor, where they were playing Rita Lee. I couldn’t keep up. I watched from a corner. I thought about Ruth, at home, crazy without me. Standing near the railing of the run-down mansion in Santa Teresa, I thought about going home, begging Ruth’s forgiveness, and forgetting that fateful morning on which I’d woken up before her. Sílvio reappeared with vodka.