“Having fun, Ciro?”
“Trying. I left Ruth, Sílvio, I left her at home and slammed the door behind me. I can’t go home.”
His eyes bulged.
“Left her for real? Or just kind of?”
“No, I don’t think so, not yet. I don’t know.”
“My friend, ‘I don’t know’ is the most exhausting phase of any separation, the rest comes naturally. I’m confused, I thought you and Ruth were immune to temptation. Think about it, Ciro, there’ll be women throwing themselves at you,” he exclaimed prophetically, “but can you handle seeing Ruth single? Think about it. Are you going to hand it all to someone else on a platter? Watch out for Ribeiro!”
“What about Ribeiro?”
“It’s just a hunch, but I’m pretty sure Ribeiro’s always had the hots for your wife,” he said as he dragged me towards the door. “But let’s not waste this crisis of yours!”
Suzana and Brites appeared out of nowhere and we went into the stuffy interior. The air of the dimly lit house smelled of marijuana. Some people were groping one another on the sofa, passing a joint from mouth to mouth. My head was spinning from Sílvio’s revelation. Ribeiro wanted to fuck Ruth. Ribeiro was going to fuck Ruth, Ribeiro could have been fucking Ruth at that very moment, while I was wandering around a hippie party. We went around the line for the bathroom and climbed a flight of stairs packed with men and women covered in glitter. On the second floor was a short corridor with several doors at the end.
“Pick one,” said Sílvio.
“What?”
“Whaddya mean, ‘what’? Pick a door, for fuck’s sake. Today’s the day, Ciro!”
Suzana and Brites laughed knowingly. I chose the one in the middle, for the sake of it, focused on my jealousy of Ruth. Suzana and Brites turned the door handle and Sílvio, before going in, gave me a naughty little wave.
“See you soon,” he said.
We went in. Pitch black, moans, and the shock of the air-conditioning. Someone grabbed my balls, a tongue darted into my ear, and an insistent hand tried to pull my pants down. I repelled, as best I could, a mustache that was trying to violate my mouth. I was disgusted by the funky smell of the room, the tantric incense, the absence of male and female, of Ruth. I fought my way out of the hungry tentacles and twisted the hand that insisted on feeling me up. Then I bolted down the hill to the streetcar line and went home in a cab that was falling to pieces. It felt like we’d never get there. I raced upstairs, almost bowled the door down, and sped down the corridor calling her name. The bedroom. Ruth standing there.
“My name’s Ciro,” I said. “I’m a lawyer, I’m married, I have a son, and no one is going to take you away from me.”
And I pulled her to me like I did the first time. It’s over, I thought. It’s over. Forgive me, Ruth. It won’t happen again.
She was stupid and short. Mediocre, servile, and loose. She wasn’t worth a hair on Ruth’s head. The office Christmas bash was a riot; I got smashed, I don’t remember much. Cinira came at me hungrily and I was amused by that clumsy little pig undoing my belt and calling me sir. It had nothing to do with love, it was just a bit of fun. I laughed as she battled her way out of her tight clothing. She got stuck in her Lastex top and I got her out with a series of jolts. We exchanged a few wet kisses with her head still stuck in the sleeve and finally had a breather when we pulled the last tuft of hair out of the collar button. When I looked at her, short, naked, and anxious with excitement, I grabbed that barrel body and finished in half a second. Shitty drunk sex, which cost me an entire night of laments and accusations. I said that Cinira was no one, it was the booze, a slip-up, it had nothing to do with us, it wouldn’t happen again, but it made no difference. Ruth seemed about to lose it again, and I couldn’t take it. She should have had more dignity, showed some self-respect, had some revenge sex, gone to Ribeiro. But no, she preferred to play the victim, a pain in the ass.
“Ruth,” I said, “you’re a pain in the asssssss!”
And I rolled over, I needed to sleep. I ended up catching about two hours of shut-eye on the sofa in the study and woke up with a stiff neck. I was still annoyed at her. I hoisted myself up, got a change of clothes, and left without saying where I was going. I didn’t show up for Christmas or New Year’s Eve.
Ruth was admitted to the clinic on the morning of January 1.
Sílvio took me in. I spent New Year’s Eve of 1980 with him, Suzana and Brites. They introduced me to Marta and, at midnight, we jumped seven waves at Leme Beach. She was dead set on having sex with me in the water. It was a superstition of hers, and I did as she wished. At least I’ve made one woman happy, I thought. Then we all went back to Glória. I woke up with a hangover, feeling guilty about what I’d done. Later in the afternoon I stopped by the apartment, where the maid told me that João was with his grandparents and Ruth had gone to the hospital with her sister.
Raquel kicked me out. Ruth was sedated. I waited in reception, lost, then went back upstairs and convinced my sister-in-law to leave. Ruth didn’t wake up until the next morning, thirsty. When she saw me, she burst into tears. I embraced her, lay down beside her, and swore I’d never do it again. She fell asleep with her head on my shoulder. When we went home, I made a point of carrying her into the bedroom in my arms. We loved one another like newlyweds. Cinira… no way, Cinira… Ruth was crazy to compare herself to that nitwit from the office.
In May, the month of brides, I took on a land expropriation case in Ipanema. Real estate speculators had moved through the neighborhood like a swarm of bees. The owner of a large developer had forced a construction site to shut down on Rua Nascimento Silva. City Hall had found one of the documents of the thirty-by-fifty-yard lot to be fraudulent. I sorted out the problem and the truck driver went back to tormenting the district. As a way of saying thanks, I was invited to a dinner. I didn’t take Ruth. I told her it was a work thing, and it was. The pretentious apartment, with a view of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, was very small and there was no airflow. Low ceilings, two-by-two-meter bedrooms, aluminum window frames, tinted glass, a windowless guest toilet, and granite counters in the kitchen. The new standard of living that those people were so proud of. Each dovecote built was given the name of a famous European: Vivaldi, Monet, Rimbaud. This one was called Voltaire. Milena came to the door with her husband to greet me. She was gorgeous. I was introduced to the crème de la crème of the real estate world—fat, rich men with Rolexes crammed onto the leather upholstery in the lounge room. I listened to praise, feigned modesty, collected contacts. On the Monday, the secretary told me that Milena, the developer’s wife, had an appointment for Tuesday.
“Did she say what it was about?”
“No, she didn’t.”
I pulled the chair out for her, walked around the desk, and sat down to hear her. Milena was even more beautiful by the light of day.
“I want to leave my husband,” she told me. “Do you think it’ll be hard?”
I was so taken aback that I returned the question.
“Hard in what sense?”
“Do you think it’s risky to ask for a divorce?”
“I guess so. Your husband’s very successful, it mustn’t be easy to give up a marriage like that.”
“He speaks very highly of you.”
What was that all about? I tried to maintain my composure.
“Milena… May I call you Milena?”
She nodded.
“I have represented your husband; I rarely work in family law, and only when there’s real estate caught up in a dispute. It wouldn’t be ethical, much less honest, to accept…”
“You don’t understand. I’m not asking for your professional help.”
And she gave me a serious look. It took me a good minute to process. It was a formal, grown-up come-on. Milena was much more forward than me. With God as my witness, we hadn’t even exchanged two sentences at that dinner party. We ignored each other entirely, and I spent the evening listening to Rio’s real estate m
oguls’ plans to destroy the city. I wasn’t looking, but she had come, falling from the sky like a ripe mango. How could I say no? A woman like that asking me to free her from the carnivorous brute she was married to, from the banquets with engineers, the trips to Disneyland. Why didn’t Ruth do the same with Ribeiro? Marriage shouldn’t kill one’s sense of adventure. This was happening to me, just me, and Ruth was free to have what was hers. Fuck “this or that”! I wanted this and that. I dialed Sílvio’s number at the bank without taking my eyes off her. I asked for the key to the pad in Glória, and he agreed immediately. Sílvio really had your back at times like that. I jotted down the address and time, 12:15 p.m., on the office letterhead.
“I might be able to help,” I said, and handed her the paper.
Milena put it in her handbag, stood, and left.
Milena and I would meet at lunchtime, then I’d wolf down a sandwich and return to reality. We maintained our routines with our spouses. Milena was a powerhouse, creative, chic. She gave me a designer suit so I could fuck her in character. If it weren’t for Ruth, I’d have married her. I lie, I wouldn’t have done that. Milena was shot at five times by her husband in Búzios, seven months after our affair. Two bullets went through her right thigh and the others buried themselves in the wall of the colonial-style house he’d built for her on Ferradura Beach. I didn’t know it, but Milena had a string of colorful stories to her name. Right after our affair, she had a torrid romance with her husband’s business partner. She hated his wife. We were still together when Milena called the poor man to say that she was head over heels in love with him. He fell—how could he not? Milena arranged to spend the weekend with him at the Maksoud Plaza, but demanded that he bring the cockatoo. The cockatoo? Yes, the cockatoo. It was a whim of hers. He would have to take the pet cockatoo, which he and his wife kept in an enormous cage in the living room, to São Paulo. He laughed at the absurdity of it and tried to negotiate, but she wouldn’t have it any other way. That Friday afternoon, he headed to the airport with the bird crammed into a travel carrier for cats, only to be caught by his wife with the rare bird and Milena at the departure gate. Milena had found a way to make sure his wife figured it out, and the cockatoo was proof of his submission. Milena’s husband got wind of her betrayal and lost it. There were precedents; Milena had never been easy. But attacking his partner, his brother, was unacceptable. A man wouldn’t have it. Blind with jealousy, he shoved a revolver in his pocket, drove to Ferradura, and unloaded the cartridges into Milena.
Our affair ended well before all that, but no less disastrously. Ruth didn’t suspect a thing. I was present, a good companion, and I was happy, really happy. One day I forgot that I’d arranged to go with her to a dentist in downtown Rio, as João was getting braces. I wasn’t at the office when she went to pick me up. I’d lost track of the time; Milena liked to make me late. My slip set off alarm bells in Ruth’s head. She became depressed and took the whole household down the hole with her. Milena became my sun. I was obsessed with her. One day, Ruth, in a fit of madness, decided to stake out my office. I left on my own and took a taxi to Glória, where Milena was waiting for me. Ruth followed me and found a way to get into the building. I don’t know if I forgot to lock the door, or if it was Milena—I don’t know; I just remember Ruth’s face materializing in the middle of the room, screeching at me like a parrot with its hackles up. The insults were so many that I switched off, went numb. I got up from the bed, pulled on my slacks and shirt, grabbed my things, and headed for the elevator. She followed, bellowing in my ear. I took the elevator down to the sound of her roaring. The elevator of times past, her formerly velvety voice, our last time as strangers. How could the world spin around so quickly?
The noise of the street was respite for the senses. The strident voice had stayed behind. I caught a cab, it was perfectly normal, sunny afternoon, Rio de Janeiro, the park, the tunnel, Copacabana, no drama, I actually convinced myself of it. I showered, turned on the TV, and had a snack. Then she arrived, transfigured. I denied it, I denied everything, I denied any knowledge of it, what Ruth was telling me was absurd. I reaffirmed that I’d been home the whole time and, in a mixture of mischievousness, depravity, and lack of character, or something like that, I insinuated that perhaps she was losing her mind. Ruth bought the idea, stopped, sat at the dining table, and asked for a glass of water. Her hands shook as she lifted it to her mouth. Her gaze became blank, empty, her movements slowed, as if she might shatter. Ruth stood, leaning on the furniture, headed for the bedroom, and lay down in her clothes. She lay there all night in silence, pupils fixed on the light. She didn’t eat the next day, didn’t get up, didn’t shower, didn’t move. On the third day, I called the doctor and he thought it best to have her hospitalized. I returned alone, João came home from school, we had dinner, he asked when his mother would be back, and I said I didn’t know. She was released a month later, but it was different from the first time. She was listless, confused, like a ghost of herself. There was no reconciliation, we didn’t celebrate anything. The atmosphere was so bleak, so heavy, that no fun was to be had at home or anywhere else. I said goodbye to Milena. She already had her sights set on Camargo. Besides, she had been horrified by Ruth’s tantrum. Milena wasn’t sad it was over. She looked down on my married life. Mine and everyone else’s.
I endured Ruth’s convalescence for months, until the itch came back to bother me. Ruth stopped being a woman, stopped looking after herself, and dropped all decorum in my presence. We barely spoke. I waited for it to pass, unsure what was expected of me. Only later did I understand. Ruth was waiting for me to cheat again, to step out of line—only then would she regain her sanity. There was nothing frail about her—it was a trap.
It didn’t take me long to fall. It’s easier for women not to think about sex than it is for men, for me. After three months of feeling guilty about the state Ruth was in, I started going out with the boys and was soon surrounded by women. I didn’t want any of them and I wanted them all. Always for the first time. Three times with the same one was rare. And that’s how I had Bete, Marga, Clara, Ana, Sônia, Cláudia, Andrea Marques, Andrea Souza, Maria João, Claude, Cristine, Gabriela, Amora, Paula, Lu, Paula Saldanha, Ana Cristina and Cristina; Roberta, on the fire escape, Mirela from the pharmacy, Gorete from the beach, Rita and Brenda, from New Jersey; Cora in Recife, Úrsula from Paraná, Brígida from 306; Marina, Ana Luísa and Míriam… Biba and Marcela. Marcela. I read Machado de Assis to her: “Marcela loved me for fifteen months and eleven contos.” She laughed and didn’t understand a thing. And there was no time to explain, because then Adriana came on the scene, and then Celina, and then Simone, Aline, Mônica, and Luciana. I don’t know who came before and who came after, all I remember is the miracle of multiplication of breasts.
I rarely spent the night at home. I’d stop by to get my mail, have a bite to eat, and see João. Ruth stopped talking to me. She’d just give me a distant look, like a judge, haughty in her certainty that I was worthless.
That was when I met Lílian. Lílian was a professor of literature at the Pontifical Catholic University. It was the most serious affair I had. I missed having a decent conversation with a decent woman. Something besides fornication and the vote of silence that Ruth had imposed on me. Lílian was cultured, unlike the others, and a dedicated lover. I started sleeping at her place regularly. I’d go home to drop off my laundry and leave quickly, increasingly hurt by Ruth. I was responsible for the horror we were going through, but she had taken the reins and pointed the cart at the gorge. She ruled out any possibility of love, cut me out of her life, and closed up like an oyster. Ruth was frighteningly passive. She didn’t want to be mine anymore, nor would she let go of me. She wanted me to leave her. The ultimate proof of my inability to love.
If that’s the way it’s going to be, I thought, then so be it. I found a place to live, a place where I could be with Lílian, with my records, my books. A small penthouse in Santa Clara became available. A work colleague had gotte
n married and wanted out of the rental contract. I took it. I didn’t tell Ruth. Bit by bit, I started taking the few things I had the right to: a few childhood belongings, my books from university, my Grappelli, João Gilberto, Beatles, and Cat Stevens LPs.
Lílian helped me arrange everything, and chose the new oven—she liked cooking. One day, I realized we were heading for a stable relationship. It was a sunny Sunday, after the beach. We showered, had sex, I put the TV on to watch the game, and sat down for lunch. Lílian appeared from the kitchen with a roasted chicken fresh out of the oven, placed it on the neatly arranged table, served me, served herself, and began to chew. I froze. I didn’t touch the food, I didn’t dare; I could never betray Ruth like that. Lílian moved on to dessert without noticing my irritation. When she got up to make coffee, I held her arm and said it wasn’t necessary. She looked at me in surprise.
“I don’t want to start all over again, Lílian. I just left my family and here I am already, with you making coffee for me. You won’t like getting to know me. I killed my wife. Maybe you’re tougher than her, but if that’s the case, you’re not the one for me. I love Ruth’s sick love for me, and I’d love you if you felt the same. But something tells me that if you were in Ruth’s shoes, you’d have sent me on my way. So I’m sending you on your way. I’m not falling into the trap of roasted chicken, the illusion of having a better half, a soul mate, all that nonsense people make up to bring us to ruin. The sex will get worse, then the bad moods will start, the boredom, the aggression, the fights. Better to stop here.”
Lílian picked up her handbag and gazed at me in shock. She was still too young to see how dark it was in the well, but she took my warning seriously and kept her distance. I never saw her again. Alone, in the living room of my apartment in Santa Clara, with Lílian’s roasted chicken staring at me from the baking dish, I realized that death was lurking everywhere. The Gordian knot of the original tumor, on the right side of the pancreas, began to unravel, I am sure, at that exact moment, and divided into a thousand rotten cells that spread through my organs and had a field day.
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