The Body Snatcher

by Patricia Melo

  Sulamita wasn’t nasty or accusatory. She was sad, vulnerable, and for that reason her dream hit me hard that night; I could almost taste blood in my mouth. Raise cattle in the Pantanal, a family. I imagined ourselves like Dona Lu and José Beraba, without the dead son, of course, but the same kind of solid marriage, the kind only money can sustain, businesses, cattle, a future as certain as a mathematical formula, and I was thinking about that when I kneeled beside Sulamita and set the panties on fire with my lighter, swearing to never again do anything that might hurt her, nothing, I said, and asked her to forgive me, said that I wanted the same thing she did, marriage, land, children, whatever you decide is fine with me.

  A man can’t spend the rest of his life screwing around with crazy women like Rita.

  Sulamita and I made love that night in a different way, without fury or anxiety like with Rita, much less our usual way, eager and affectionate, it was something deep, throbbing, impulsive. I plunged toward something very profound, deep down, a grotto, and returned to the surface moaning, happy, plunged and submerged, very slowly and with great impetus, advancing and retreating, until I came.

  The next day I went to Moacir and said, Let’s go ahead with that project.

  We don’t have any money, Moacir had explained, so it’s ideal for us. ’Cause Ramirez doesn’t want customers. He wants partners.

  I made it quite clear that this would be the one and only time I would get involved in anything like that. But don’t say that to Juan, he said. We take the money and get out. I don’t wanna fuck up my life either. I’m gonna set up a real cool workshop, that’s all I want.

  I spoke to Sulamita too, lying that I had some money set aside. We’ll pool our savings and buy a small piece of land. A beginning, over.

  Now, walking down the pitted streets of Puerto Suárez, we looked for the bar where Juan, Ramirez’s friend, would be waiting for us. I had called Dalva and said I wouldn’t be working that day because I had diarrhea. Dalva told me about a remedy using water and cornstarch. Use it and tomorrow you’ll be fine.

  How is she? I asked.

  Dona Lu? Very bad, Dalva replied.

  I hung up the phone with a sadness in my breast. I truly wanted Dona Lu to heal, and told Dalva so. But think about it, she answered. How do you heal from the death of a son?

  We drank a soda; the owner of the bar had the radio tuned to a Brazilian station, hearing news from Brazil and commercials for Brazilian products. I listened and thought there must not be a worse punishment in the world than to be born in Puerto Suárez.

  Ten minutes later, Juan came into the bar wearing a hat and a red shirt. Let’s take your car, he said.

  We got into the van. So far, I told myself, so good, over. Juan was a likable guy and enjoyed speaking Portuguese. Turn left, then straight ahead, he said. Actually, his Portuguese was as rotten as my Spanish, and if he thought he was speaking Portuguese, I also believed I was communicating in Spanish. Take another left, he said. And then he asked if I liked puerco. I answered yes, mucho. They make a magnificent roast puerco here, pointing to a bar that had nothing magnificent about it. To the right and then to the left, he said.

  Then Juan began explaining how he had learned Portuguese, from watching telenovelas, he said, another left, and that’s how I learned, to the left now, but I also take chances, like the case of puerco. I didn’t know how to say puerco in Portuguese, he said, but I deduced it was like in Spanish: puerco.

  It’s not puerco, it’s porco, I said.

  No? he said, laughing. Do I talk that bad? From then on, he started calling me Porco. Porco this, Porco that: what could I do?

  Moacir didn’t participate in the conversation, he just looked out the window, absorbed like a child being carried by his parents.

  We were leaving the city when Juan told me to park, pointing to a house with unplastered walls. The district was even poorer and more desolate than downtown, and it afforded a clear view of the area. Two young men, shirtless and armed, were the security for the place.

  We were taken inside the dwelling, crossed the living room, where a couple, seated ceremoniously on a dilapidated sofa, were taken aback by our presence. We went through the kitchen, toward the rear of the house, until we came to a spacious backyard, cemented and partially covered. Ramirez was there, beside a compressing machine, overseeing the job of compacting the pasty base. I was introduced as Porco, Moacir’s friend. Now it was official, I thought. Porco. You’re gonna have to wait a little, Juan said. I just need the car keys.

  I didn’t like that, but Moacir stepped up, took the key from my hand, and handed it to a young guy who had just arrived and was beside Juan.

  We watched as Ramirez skillfully packaged the drug. Strips of fine transparent backing paper were placed in the holes of the press. Using a spoon, he adjusted the drug on the plastic and then sealed the capsules with a nylon thread.

  As we watched, the side gate opened and my van came through, driven by the youth who had taken the key minutes earlier.

  Two more young men came from the house and began talking with the driver about the best place to hide the drugs. I felt uneasy. What’s going on? I asked Moacir. Take it easy, he said. Everything’s cool.

  At that moment the couple who were in the living room when we arrived joined us, each carrying a bottle of water. I finally understood what those poor devils, neophytes like us, were doing there. Ramirez gave the instructions, and in the next twenty minutes the couple swallowed a large number of capsules, close to 800 grams of the drug. The narcotic would be transported inside their bodies, that same day, to somewhere in southern Brazil.

  The woman looked like a frightened rodent about to be hunted. I thought she would faint at any moment.

  Juan left, taking the couple with him, and only then did Ramirez start talking to us.

  By then, the exhaust pipe had already been removed from my van. I was panic-stricken when I realized what the scheme was: we would be taking ten kilos of coke, and not two as I had agreed with Moacir. Five would be picked up by another agent of Ramirez’s the next day, and the rest was ours. For our work, we would get forty days to settle our debt.

  I took Moacir aside. Have you gone mad? I asked. That’s not what we agreed.

  Stay cool, he said. Everything’s okay.

  I panicked.

  I went into the bathroom, my urge was to dump Moacir and the van right there, and then Moacir came after me and said, You think I’d put everybody, Eliana, my kids, my mother, at risk? Think I’m crazy? Trust me, he said. It’s gonna work out.

  When Ramirez explained to us how crossing the border would be, I thought he had to be joking. It’s just that, Ramirez said, the less you two know, the better. Stay calm. Cross the border like it isn’t nothing.

  What if they stop us? Arrest us?

  None of that’s gonna happen, Moacir said. Ramirez guarantees it.

  On the trip back, I was trembling from head to toe. You don’t have the slightest notion of what we’re doing, I told Moacir, you’re a nutcase, clueless, in your tribe there’s nothing like this, you think you’re clever but you’re nothing but a clueless Indian. He laughed, calmly. Look at Juan there, he said, pointing, when we were about to cross the border, he’s gonna help us. I saw Juan parking the car, from which the terrified rodent and the young man with their bellies stuffed with drugs got out. Juan fled.

  We were about to pass by the guards when the two unfortunates practically cut us off. And then seven cops, along with those in the guard post, appeared and surrounded the couple, who were handcuffed and dragged off somewhere.

  As for us, we weren’t even searched. A piece of cake. Seeing the two of them screwed.

  As soon as we were at a safe distance, I stopped the car. You stupid Indian, I yelled, feeling my legs shaking.

  Everything’s been all right from the beginning, said Moacir. I knew.

  Knew what?

  Ramirez and Juan ratted out the couple. They do that, it’s normal. They turned the
m in so we could get through.

  You fucker, I said. You knew?

  I started the car. You shitass Indian, I said. You’re not worth a damn.

  On the rest of the way, I didn’t even look at Moacir. He started telling a long story, how Ramirez had five brothers, and that he knew the second oldest, and how one of them was in prison. Shut up, I said, you’re making me even more nervous.

  13

  What are you doing here? Sulamita asked as soon as I entered the morgue. I had the feeling that she didn’t want me to kiss her.

  Sulamita had asked me several times not to go there, not even to pick her up after work. That place isn’t like a precinct, she had said, or a government office. Sometimes I feel like I’m in the devil’s kitchen. And that’s where I work. Where the devil cooks up misfortune. We have a huge refrigerator, rusty, and every morning my heart races when I think of what I’m going to find in those drawers. You can’t imagine the smell that impregnates our clothes and hair. The smell of carrion, sulfur, garbage. Think of any kind of stench you’re familiar with, it’s worse there, she had said. It’s rancid and thick, you can almost pick it up with your hands. I don’t want you to visit me. Not you, not anyone.

  I didn’t think about any of that when I went to get her. I had phoned twice, but apparently answering calls wasn’t the morgue’s forte. My head was boiling, I tried to calm down, I needed a bit of the comfort that Sulamita’s mere presence brought me, and that’s why I was there.

  An hour earlier, I’d been in bed listening to Moacir dismantling my car in his workshop, nervous because I knew ten kilos of cocaine were there, when Rita knocked at the door. In shorts, boots, with braids in her hair. She couldn’t have chosen a worse moment, I thought. Smoking. Enormous gall on her part. Rita was incredible. She wanted to know what “weird business” was “going down” between us. Why didn’t I answer my cell phone? What had she done wrong? Didn’t I love her anymore?

  Rita was a cynic. Her breasts free under her T-shirt and her nails painted a garish orange, as if she wanted to catch me in a snare.

  Carlão told me you’re pregnant, I said. I know everything. The baby you two are having. A beautiful family, I said. I can’t understand how you can do that to Carlão. Pregnant and coming here after me. I also said she disgusted me. It’s one thing, Rita, for us to have some fun, another for you to have a child with Carlão.

  The child is yours, she replied. Just like that, to my face. And then she explained, confusedly, that she really had talked with Carlão even before speaking with me, despite the child being mine and not his. It’s yours, she said over and over, not his, it’s really yours, I was just preparing the ground. You know it’s not his, but Carlão is a great guy, it’s yours, and you remember how Carlão helped you when you were all screwed up? When that telemarketer woman killed herself because of you? I don’t want to hurt Carlão, she said. She said: We don’t need to do that to people. Goading. Sulamita doesn’t deserve to suffer either. That’s how I am, I don’t like to make anyone suffer. And lately, she concluded, we’ve fought so much, I don’t know what’s happening, it’s like there’s a black cloud hovering over us. You don’t answer my phone calls, I didn’t have the chance to talk about the pregnancy.

  I pushed Rita away, I don’t believe it, I said, get out and leave me alone, and that was when she grabbed my arm, shouting that the child was mine. You idiot, she said, you idiotic piece of shit, whose do you think it is? I was afraid the neighbors would hear.

  Lower your voice, goddammit.

  The child is yours. Get that through your skull. I’m one month pregnant. And now you want to run away from your responsibility? You think you can get me pregnant and just run away?

  We fell silent, lost in thought, at the door to my bedroom. Down below, Moacir was still hammering my car.

  How can I be sure you’re not lying?

  She laughed wearily.

  I’m not joking, I said. You lie so often to Carlão. In fact, what guarantee is there that the child isn’t Carlão’s? Or whoever’s? How many men do you have, Rita?

  And then Rita slapped me; at the time, I remembered my telemarketer who’d committed suicide. It’s not everyone who’s up to taking a slap like that. I’m going to tell you the truth, Rita said, the child isn’t yours. I’d never have a child with a fool like you.

  I wasn’t prepared for that upside-down declaration. I watched Rita leave, coldly, descending the stairs in fury. I didn’t know whether I should shout, run after her and grab her by the hair, whether I should slam the door with all my strength. My desire was to attack and to ask forgiveness at the same time. To strike and retreat. That was why I went looking for Sulamita.

  Did I do the wrong thing coming here? I asked.

  I tried to hug her but she drew back.

  What is it?

  That curse. I already explained it to you, she said. A strange odor impregnates me when I’m here. Can you smell it?

  The smell of shampoo, I said, after sniffing her hair.

  Really?

  Of course. You smell as good as ever, I insisted. But it was a lie. A putrid and nauseating odor came from everywhere, including from Sulamita.

  She smiled. Want to see something?

  She took me by the hand and led me to the inner chamber of the morgue, an immense room lined with tiles that once had been white but now were merely dingy. In the middle, three ruined stainless-steel tables. On one of them was a cadaver, underneath a sheet that covered almost everything except the feet.

  Sulamita explained that the autopsies were done there. Rapes, homicides, a little of everything, she said. People from around here and throughout the region. We get bodies in every day. It’s rare for us to have a day, one lousy day, without someone arriving here.

  She told me that was her job. Coordinating the autopsy team. Receiving the cadavers, storing them, cleaning them, placing them on the table for the coroner to examine. She also said that she witnessed the autopsies.

  And without my asking, she took me to the middle table and pulled back the sheet from the body of a still young woman whose legs were covered with abrasions. A heart-shaped earring was on her right ear.

  This one died yesterday, she said.

  I noticed that Sulamita was pale.

  Rape followed by murder, she continued. They found her tossed into a garbage dump.

  We stared at the cadaver for several seconds.

  Are you sure, she asked, that I don’t have that smell on me?

  Yes, I replied, taking her in my arms.

  14

  Then Sulamita started to cry. I can’t go on anymore, she said, I can’t take it, I can’t and I won’t, she repeated endlessly. She sounded like a broken record. I need to go away, she said. I can’t take it anymore. She said that when she heard the sound of the meat wagon parking outside, her heart leaped like a toad fleeing from a snake. I can’t take it. I feel like I’m going to vomit up my own stomach. I can’t go on. Head of the morgue, she said. You know what my function is? It wasn’t till the day I signed in and read the job description that I realized what was about to happen to my life. Till then I thought it was some kind of promotion, that I’d stop being an administrative assistant doing bureaucratic work, and make more money. I didn’t understand that I’d be working in this horrible world of people who stink and rot. Of course I knew what it was, I took the qualifying exams, studied, knew the names of everything, all the instruments we use, all the types of brushes and clamps and saws that cut through the skull, I knew it all, the technical terms, the procedures, I knew but I didn’t understand what they would mean in my life. That rancidity. You smell it, don’t you?

  And she began to cry again, pressing her hands against her face.

  I took Sulamita by the arm. Let’s get out of here, I said.

  We crossed the street, went into a bar where the families of the cadavers crowded together to eat a cold sandwich while waiting to identify their dead. Everything here’s like that, she said, con
taminated, there’s no place to escape, you can’t have a cup of coffee in peace without running into those wretches suffering because their son, their mother, their brother died. Yesterday, a mother who lost her two-year-old son, drowned in the pool, beat her head against the wall and screamed.