The End

by Fernanda Torres

  I went on a rampage.

  Regarding João, I dealt with Raquel, or the lawyers. I paid child support, always on time. Ruth ceased to exist, which in a way was a relief. I dreamed about her. We’d talk, fuck, fight. It was good, the only way to ease the pain of missing her. On several occasions I wanted to call her to say we’d spent the night together, but I didn’t.

  I preferred Sílvio’s company. I frequented the wildest clubs, snorted more than I should have, and did my best at those insipid sex parties. When Sílvio told me he was leaving for the South, I thought a break would be good. His dream was to see us all together in an orgy, a brotherly bacchanal. He talked about it a lot with me. He claimed it would cure Álvaro of his impotence, Neto of his monogamy, and Ribeiro of his childishness. Sílvio had a serious theory about it. But things didn’t work out the way he’d planned. You don’t always get what you want. I think he was pissed off that I’d taken the Argentinean into the bedroom; he brought it up on the phone the next day. He was frustrated. Neto and Ribeiro had let the opportunity slip, and Álvaro hadn’t been able to get it up, as usual, instead falling asleep in the arms of his Nubian beauty. It was an anticlimax, he complained, before taking off forever. A year later, more or less, I felt a sharp pain on the right side of my abdomen. My skin turned the color of yellow piss, my piss turned black, and they treated me as if it was hepatitis—but it was much worse. Now I’m here.

  What time is it? It’s dark out. I must have fallen asleep. Have they already shot me up? No doubt they have. Where’s my next dose? I want to go back to where I was.

  There’s someone in the room.

  The lack of privacy in hospital is abusive. The doors have no locks. Nurses, cleaners, doctors, anyone can come in whenever they please. They talk in loud voices, fiddle with everything. They clean the floor, change catheters, poke, prod, perforate—it’s a nightmare. Lethargy stops me from asking who it is. I don’t have the strength, I’m pure thought. It’s a woman. New. It’s not Eneida. No. It’s not Eneida. It’s not Gisa. Who is it? Who is it? I try to make an audible sound, but my lips don’t move. She checks my veins, takes my temperature, injects poison into the drip. My hand slips through the bars of the bed and comes to rest on her hip. It’s firm, like Ruth’s.

  “What day is it?”

  “Friday,” she says.

  “Date?”

  “The forth of August,” she says.

  “What year?”

  “Nineteen ninety.”

  A fine date, I thought.

  “Have I been asleep for long?”

  “A week,” she says.

  A week. A week that I didn’t see pass. A blessing. If I were in prison, I’d report them all for torture. In prison, I’d do my time and get out alive. Not the case here. Nope, not my case. I’m at the end of the row, tied to the electric chair, standing in front of a firing squad.

  “Give me another dose.”

  “You’re not due for one for another three hours.”

  Three hours… an eternity.

  “Hey, come closer,” I say, pressing my hand against her backside as best I can, trying to bring her closer.

  “Mr. Ciro…” she says. “What?”

  “Come closer,” I insist.

  She obeys. I run my fingers up her waist.

  “Mr. Ciro…” she repeats.

  “Climb on top of me,” I plead.

  She tries to take my hand off her breast, but I latch on and don’t let go.

  “What are you afraid of? I’m harmless, can’t you see? What harm could it do? Don’t deny a dying man his last wish.”

  She glances at the door, afraid someone will come in. I pull her to me. The face in focus comes with a name, Maria Clara.

  “Maria Clara. Your friend didn’t lie,” I say.“You’re really beautiful, Maria Clara.”

  Her chest heaves under my fingers.

  “Come on,” I repeat, “sit on me. Be a saint, it’s my mercy shot.”

  “Mr. Ciro… let me go.”

  “No, you let me go. Let me go. Let me. Let…”

  She meets my gaze, thinking about something, doesn’t say what, then checks the door once again and, without a word, lowers the side rail, pulls the step stool over to the bed, and sits down beside me. I laugh thankfully. She smells nice. I wait for her to continue, but no, she stops where she is.

  “Is that all?” I ask.

  She blushes.

  “Mr. Ciro… please.”

  “Climb on. I’ll call you by another name, it won’t be you.”

  “No, Mr. Ciro, for Heaven’s sake.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “But you want to get married. So you pretend I’m him and I’ll pretend you’re my wife. What harm could it do?”

  “It isn’t right,” she murmurs.

  “Nothing in this life is right,” I say, and I know what I’m talking about.

  After a long pause, she begins a complex choreography of climbing onto my hips without unplugging the umpteen tubes that connect me to the IV pole. The incision on my abdomen is healing, but it isn’t a good idea to rest any weight there. She tries to be quick. Straddling me on her knees, she lets herself down carefully, until she relaxes on me. How long it has been since my body has given me joy, I think. I stroke her thighs. I love women.

  “See? It was nothing,” I say to reassure her.

  “Yes, it was nothing,” she agrees.

  I ask what she has on the tray.

  “Your antibiotics.”

  The antibiotics alone won’t get me where I want to go, I think.

  “Anything else?”

  “Two other prescriptions, which have to be given at intervals,” she says.

  I have time. I propose that we play doctors and nurses, and laugh. She wants to get down. Annoyed, I say that she can get down in just a minute, but first I want a favor. Maria Clara looks startled, afraid to even imagine what I’m about to suggest. I am direct.

  “Inject it all at once,” I say, and wait to see what her reaction will be.

  Maria Clara draws back, and is about to return to the sofa bed, but I squeeze her wrist and rattle off the horrors of the ICU, the machines to prolong life, my grandfather who died seventeen days before he checked out, his coffin dripping blood, his body riddled with holes from every kind of urgent intervention.

  “You have to help me. They’re going to stuff me full of tubes, I’m going to die in agony, you know it. I know you all talk about your patients. I’m not getting out of here. You’re my angel, Maria Clara. I’ve chosen you. Let me go like this, between your legs, please do what I’m asking.”

  She looks at me, terrified. I continue with my plea. As long as she is listening, she won’t leave my side.

  “If you get off this bed, even if you visit me every day, and sit on me every day, I’ll never again feel the pleasure I felt just now, in this gesture of yours. Be a saint, have mercy on me.”

  A sepulchral silence fills the room. Maria Clara stares at me deeply. How beautiful she is, good God. Without a word, she reaches over to the little table and pulls the metal tray with three injections toward her.

  “I don’t know if it’ll work,” she says.

  I feel indescribable joy. Concerned that the cocktail might not be lethal enough, I ask if she has anything else in her handbag.

  “Just some pain killers.”

  “Mix it all together,” I order. It comes out too harsh and I follow it up with the disastrous argument that, alive, I’d be a problem for her.

  “Everyone’s expecting me to die. No one’s going to think it wasn’t natural. But if I’m here tomorrow, they’ll test me, open me up, then they’ll come for you.”

  The reminder that it’s against the law, and could be investigated, puts a damper on her decision to help me. Maria Clara panics. In a muffled voice, she says she won’t do it.

  “Get off,” I say drily. “It’s not supposed to be like this. And you needn’t come tomorrow. I’ll ta
lk to Eneida and ask her to find someone to take your place.”

  Disappointed, I roll over and pretend to be asleep.

  Maria Clara gets down. A terrifying cold seeps through my bones. She recomposes herself and lifts the side rail back up. She leaves in silence. I am alone, in the tomb. I think of nothing, neither future or past. All I have left is the agonizing wait. I close my eyes.

  I think I must have fallen sleep. I am woken by the metallic rattle of the bed. Someone is lowering it. I hear the scrape of the step stool and a face appears over me. It’s her. Maria Clara climbs onto me again and I feel the warmth of her blood heating up mine. Like before, she reaches for the medicine tray and says calmly, “It’s time for your medicine.”

  Maria Clara holds the syringe and gets up on her knees to reach the IV pole. Her belly is close to my face. I slip my hand under her skirt and pull aside her panties. I want to smell her. She lets me, as she injects the contents of the syringe into the drip. A wave of warmth runs through my veins and my hair stands on end. Her skin on mine, velvet. Morphine. My dose. The last one.

  “I love you, Maria Clara.”

  I press her against the elevator wall, our voices echoing in the shaft. She’s mine, I cry, and drag Ruth out of the circle. On the balcony, we kiss with the same urgency. A bolt of lightning charges down my spine. I run a hand between Maria Clara’s legs until I touch the middle of her, then I slip my fingers inside her.

  “My name is Ciro. I’m a lawyer, divorced, and it’s never happened to me like this.”

  ‌Next

  It was already light out when Maria Clara left the hospital, the sun harsh on her skin. She hated working nights. So many people die after midnight, she said every time she found herself on the night shift.

  She walked to the bus stop, feeling weary. She didn’t want to think about what she had done—it was done, may he rest in peace. No one had found anything suspicious; he hadn’t received any visitors in the two weeks she had worked there. They all knew. A bed would become available. Who would care? It was better for him, she concluded, a migraine piercing her head like a hook. She took out the blister pack of painkillers from her bag—she had saved one for herself. She popped out the black disc, put it in her mouth, and swallowed it dry. It felt good to board the bus and get moving. The morning, as clear as the previous afternoon, acted on her senses along with the pill. She remembered the nervousness with which she had gotten off at the bus stop the night before, hurrying up the stairs to the room. Why did she want to see him so badly? Her attention wandered over the breathtaking scenery, Sugarloaf Mountain waking up to yet another hot day overlooking Guanabara Bay. Euthanasia, death, a prison sentence. Ciro. The image of Ciro, his hands on her waist. Maria Clara fell asleep with her head leaning on the bus window.

  She was a nurse, but she could have been a flight attendant. She had wanted to wear a uniform, have men fantasize about her. When people asked, she said it was her dream to work in medicine, or to see the world. It was all a lie. What Maria Clara really liked was to feel attractive. She made the wrong choice. Aviation, perhaps, would have given her a few more years of illusion. The hospital routine turned out to be brutal from the outset: the bedpans, the sponge baths, the fart smell of the rooms. She was ready to throw in the towel when Lívia suggested she take her place as companion to a patient who was terminally ill.

  “He isn’t old,” her friend told her.“He’s still good-looking, a gentleman; he quotes philosophers to flirt with us, you’ll like him. All you have to do is give him his medicine and brush his teeth. The nursing staff will take care of the rest.”

  Lívia was living out the destiny that Maria Clara had dreamed of for herself. She had married a doctor, from a long line of doctors, and had become pregnant four months later. Forbidden to set foot in the hospital, and happy about it, as she intended to be a full-time wife and mother, she rescued her friend from the horrors of ER.

  During the two weeks that she watched over her new patient, Ciro wasn’t there. He mumbled some words that she couldn’t make out and seemed to hear what she said, but he never opened his eyes. Cold and professional, Maria Clara remained aloof, dispensed with greetings, and ignored the man on the bed for most of the time she was there. She bathed him, brushed his teeth, and combed his hair, always indifferent, impartial, absent. She spent her time doing crossword puzzles, leafing through magazines, taking his blood pressure, watching TV, and dozing. Ten hours after clocking on, she would leave, her day’s work done.

  She grew to like the night shift. She would leave at seven in the morning and have breakfast with her boyfriend downtown. Unlike the ER, her current job allowed her to get a decent night’s sleep, and she would show up for her dates feeling fresh, ready to plan her prosperous future with Nelson.

  The nurse’s uniform had been Cupid’s arrow. They had met at the bakery, as had become custom, he on his way to work at the bank, she leaving the night shift. The white clothes accentuating her curves, the light-colored pumps, the knees on display. Nelson went crazy over the brunette with broad hips, wearing that erotic costume in broad daylight. He asked her out, gave her his phone number, his address, asked her to marry him. Nothing tugged on Maria Clara’s heartstrings more than a man in a suit who was attracted to her. She was proper, but accessible. They arranged to go out for dinner. Nelson spent to impress, and she was duly impressed, but later she understood the hand-to-mouth reality of her suitor, who lived on the meager wages of a bank employee and the hope of a promotion. She was bothered by the fact that he didn’t have a car. Nelson took the bus, which in her mind stole much of his virility.

  Better than nothing.

  Maria Clara had left her family in Friburgo to study in the capital. Aunts and uncles, cousins, parents, siblings, grandparents. She supported herself in Rio with great effort, taking the worst shifts, working overtime, whatever it took. Now, regretting her choice of profession, she wanted urgently to find someone to look after her, share the bills, and keep her near the ocean. Nelson wasn’t good-looking but he wasn’t ugly, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t cheat, and he doted on Maria Clara. He wasn’t the catch Lívia had found, but nor was she Lívia. Each to her own. She took the only opportunity that appeared and had sex with Nelson as soon as she felt it was safe. She wanted to ensure that he would feel guilty if he ever decided to leave her. She wasn’t head over heels in love with her fiancé; it was enough to have one, or almost enough. Nelson was more committed, saving money and making plans to live happily ever after.

  Eneida taught her how to address a patient in an induced coma.

  “Speak clearly, close to his ear. Don’t speak directly into his ear canal, as it can cause deafness. Speak clearly and slowly. They can hear you.”

  And she demonstrated the technique.

  No one had told her about the change in medication. Maria Clara was holding a wet towel to Ciro’s face before shaving him, when the dead man’s eyes popped open and stared at her in confusion. Seeing him awake, she almost fainted. She had grown accustomed to the idea that Ciro didn’t exist. She missed a breath when she saw the mass of flesh transform into a large, indignant man, staring straight at her. Terrified, she resorted to Eneida’s stereophonic speech:

  “MY NAME IS MARIA CLARA, I’VE REPLACED LÍVIA. SHE CAME TO INTRODUCE ME. SHE WANTED TO SAY GOODBYE TO YOU, BUT YOU WERE ASLEEP. LÍVIA TOLD ME TO GIVE YOU A HU…”

  “Are you deaf?” asked Ciro harshly, with the little strength he had left. “Why are you shouting? Did someone die? Who’s dead? Someone died, I remember the funeral.”

  He understood he was delirious and asked for water, his mouth dry.

  “Won’t you give water to a dying man?” he said, already feeling capable of making jokes.

  Maria Clara went to get it and returned with the glass, trembling. Ciro drank it and looked her up and down.

  “Lívia told me I wouldn’t be disappointed. Let me see. What’s your name?”

  “I told you my name.”

&nbs
p; “I don’t remember.”

  “Maria Clara.”

  “Maria Clara. Pretty.”

  “You think so?”

  “I do. Don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Are you married?”

  “No.”

  “Do you intend to get married?”

  “Yes, God willing.”

  “Pray for Him not to be willing. How old are you?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  “Twenty-four. It’ll pass. Make the most of it because it flies by.”

  Tired of the banter, Ciro allowed himself a pause.

  “Why do you want to get married?”

  “Because it’s what there is to do.”

  “That’s not an answer. Why do you want to get married?”

  “Because I don’t want to go back to Friburgo.”

  “Now that’s a concrete reason. Nevertheless, don’t do it. Do you love him?”

  “More or less.”

  “Then there’s no problem.”

  “Why is there no problem?”

  “Because marriage with love always ends in tragedy.”

  Maria Clara looked at him in dismay.

  “Can I have something to eat?”

  “I think so.”

  She pressed the nurse call button. Within seconds, the room filled with nurses taking blood pressure, drawing blood, and checking his reflexes. Maria Clara disappeared behind the crowd, sat on the sofa, and mulled over the short dialogue. It wasn’t every day that she met someone who was interested in her life. She had always felt bad about being with Nelson out of convenience. She had decided to renounce luck, be a realist, and marry frustration. Now, an entity had appeared from the other side to say that marriage was certain disaster. He had spoken of tragedy. Condemned love. Assured her that the lack of affection might be an advantage. In what? she thought. She felt like telling him what no one else knew: that during a period when she was tight for money, she had accepted the favors of an older gentleman in Tijuca to make the rent, which was in arrears. He supported her for a time. She suspected that what she felt for Nelson was no different than the void she felt when she took her clothes off in the bedroom of the mildew-infested apartment on Rua Conde de Bonfim. What good was there in that? Ciro had only given her one imperative, and it was spot-on: Make the most of it, he had said. Make the most of it because it flies by. Indeed. In the last year, Maria Clara had realized that, although she was still young, she had no more time for sudden or big changes of direction in life. Too late to change careers or find a better man. He’s right, it flies by, she thought.