The Body Snatcher

by Patricia Melo

  I turned on the cell phone. You have new messages appeared on the screen. Enter your code, said the recording. I tried the day and year of Junior’s birth. Nothing. The messages were released when I typed part of his ID number. Son, said Dona Lu, what time are you arriving? Your father wants to have dinner earlier, he’s traveling tomorrow. Call me. I love you, my dear. Another message, from Daniela, his girlfriend: Hi, love. Gil invited us to his house today. Ricky and Laura are going too. Gabi’s here also. When you get in, call me at home.

  The other messages were from Dona Lu, and it was obvious they’d been left after the accident. Actually, they were nothing but sobs, moans, a throbbing pain that penetrated the soul like a sharp object. If I had to define the moment when the idea of blackmailing Dona Lu first entered my head, I’d say it was then, in bed, listening to those recordings. My sensation was that something came to the surface at that moment, a part of me submerged in the depths of my swamp, the evil, over. And what if you blackmail the family, over? What if you say you know where the body is? And ask for money in exchange for the body? Over.

  I liked Dona Lu a lot, but that didn’t keep me from having that horrible idea. That, I thought, is nothing but pure iniquity, and I’m a good person. If I’m not good, I thought, at least I’m not the worst. I’m a regular type. Almost good. I’m neutral, to tell the truth. I always sin. Yes, I did push that telemarketer into the abyss. With a slap. Yes, I had an affair with my cousin’s wife. I’ve lied a lot in my life. But I don’t do certain things. I don’t kill. I don’t steal. I’m incapable of taking advantage of a mother’s pain. Or blackmailing a mother who’s suffering. Money, over. From the cadaver of her own son. Opportunity, over. A mother you know and who’s called Dona Lu. Fifty thousand dollars, over. If that vileness was inside me, trying to break out, I would put an end to it.

  You’re being stupid, over. That’s what my internal radio, which it was no longer possible to turn off, was saying. I would think and my private interlocutor, over, would counter, always trying to show me I was wrong, that goodness, over, like God, was a fantasy, that man is born bad and gets worse with time, and that I should forge ahead with my diabolical plan.

  I was still in a state of confusion. I had changed clothes and was soaked again, ready to get back to work, but without the heart to face the heat outside. I’m going to phone the Berabas, I thought, and say I don’t feel very good, and at just that moment Dalva called me on my cell phone.

  Where are you? she said. Distressed, she asked me to go to the hospital. It was urgent.

  I put everything back in the crawl space and dashed out.

  18

  Horrible, horrible, said Dalva when I got to the hospital. That girl, Junior’s girlfriend, came to the house this morning. Dona Lu had started the day well; I even managed to get her to drink a little milk. We went for a stroll in the garden, she took some sun on the veranda, she was really in good shape, we talked, she asked if you were going to get there soon, said she’d like to go to church. I thought, It’s going to be a better day, but then Daniela arrived. You know how Dani is, I’ve never seen anyone so spoiled, such a pampered girl, she arrived fresh from the beauty salon, her toenails and fingernails painted with the greatest care, you could even smell the polish, you know? Fresh nail polish? And she started saying how she was suffering, depressed, how she couldn’t stand it anymore, and me just looking at those red nails. The girl goes for a manicure and then suffers? All manicured? That’s what I don’t understand. Suffering doesn’t have red fingernails. Look at Dona Lu. The woman doesn’t even brush her teeth if I don’t put the paste on the toothbrush, she can’t even do that herself. Combing her hair. I’m the one who dresses Dona Lu. And the other woman going to the manicurist. Right away the two of them were crying, hugging, I called the girl aside and said, Listen, Dani, it’d be better for you to leave, Dona Lu is very weak, she can’t handle so much emotion. But Dani acted like she didn’t hear, hugged me, cried and stood there, sobbing, complaining about life like she was a widow. When she left, Dona Lu had to lie down, you know, the poor thing is so thin, so frail that she can’t stay on her feet. When I went to take her soup at lunchtime, I found her fallen beside the empty boxes of medicine she had swallowed. Horrible.

  I was devastated, not only because of Dona Lu but for having spent the morning thinking about some way of deceiving that woman who had just attempted suicide. And she liked me. Trusted me. How could I do anything bad to Dona Lu?

  Dalva left to buy fruit and José went home to take a bath. I won’t be long, he said. I was by myself in the waiting room, observing the movement of the nurses.

  It was more or less four in the morning when I heard a rustling; Dona Lu was as silent as an old cat. I went into the room and found her awake. I asked if she needed anything. I explained that José and Dalva must already be back and that I wouldn’t leave, she could rest easy. She smiled in a helpless way. I took her hand and said I understood perfectly what they were going through. And I began telling the story of my father, in a way I’d never done. For years, it was as if I were ashamed of what had happened with my father. How can a person wake up, have breakfast, kiss his wife and son, leave for work saying See you later, and never return? To me it always seemed I was the problem, not my father. My mother. She was the problem. The two of us, together and wrapped up in each other, constituted a heavy burden for my father. And afterward, I must say, I had a hard time understanding a finish like that. That’s not how people end, I thought. It was a system failure. Somebody’s mistake. That’s what I thought, but that day I told the story in different terms. Maybe because it seemed to me, at least there in the hospital, that Dona Lu and I belonged to the same club of those who don’t know what happened to members of their family. The club of the last to know. I surprised myself with my courage that day. It takes a certain amount of impudence to talk about abandonment, even when no one is to blame. I spoke without embarrassment, told how my father left the house and evaporated like ether, how he didn’t even show up at the shoe store where he was manager. We’re terrified, the saleswomen told my mother. We don’t know what to do with the orders. The payments. Where are the records? He left with just the clothes on his back, we repeated, as if that somehow proved we weren’t involved in the disappearance. And at night, in bed, my mother sobbed, hugging me, and said that something terrible had happened to daddy, something very awful, she said, which filled me with fear. I imagined something so frightening that it couldn’t even be visualized, it wasn’t like a fire, a shooting, it was worse, it was evil in its essence, its definitive form, as implacable as a fall into the abyss. If he were alive, she would say, he’d phone me. But the fact is that my father never called. We never found out whether he died, whether he was murdered, whether he was run over and buried as an indigent or ran away with another woman.

  I also spoke of the regular visits to hospitals and police stations, the false leads, the wild goose chases, our unceasing hope that only ended the day my mother died. When I buried my mother, I buried my father too. In the same grave. It was necessary to bury my father, I said. That was very important. The funeral. Without burial, at least a symbolic one, I wouldn’t have been able to go on.

  Dona Lu’s eyes were closed, she seemed not to hear. I went on talking for a time, until I noticed the tears running down her face and falling onto the pillow.

  The nurse came in to apply an injection and asked Dona Lu if she preferred that I leave. She didn’t answer but grasped my hand, not strongly, but she grasped it. I waited for her to take the medication and left when I saw she was asleep.

  Later, Daniela came to visit, bringing flowers and chocolate. She’s sleeping, I said. Daniela sat beside me in her tight pants, hair down to her waist. She radiated wealth, Daniela. Wealth came out of her pores and shone before us like purpurin.

  I’ve lost hope, she said.

  About what?

  Junior is dead. We’re not going to find him.

  And why did you come he
re?

  What?

  Why do you go on messing up Dona Lu’s life?

  I spoke without thinking, but once I had spoken, I forged ahead, asked why she continued visiting Dona Lu, tormenting Dona Lu, why she didn’t get on with her own life, find another boyfriend, travel to Europe. It’ll be better for everyone, I said. Leave Dona Lu be.

  Daniela started to cry.

  But I lost patience.

  I’m going to get some coffee, I said. If you want to leave, wait for the nurse or someone from the family.

  While I drank an espresso I thought about the large number of dying people there. Many would never return home. It was just a matter of time. From there, they would go straight to the cemetery. If I could at least find a body, over, I could go forward with my plan.

  I’m not going to do anything of the sort, I thought. Yes, you are, over. Nothing of the sort. No way. Never. Not to Dona Lu. I don’t do such things. All my life I felt I was made of ordinary stuff, the type who’s abandoned by his father, but that’s a lot different from being bad. I’m not perverse. A rapist, an alcoholic. A psychopath. Kidnapper. Thief. I lack the courage to do certain things. To kidnap. There’s a limit to everything. Rape. In dealing with goodness, if I’m not neutral, at least I’m unimportant. Which is great, morally speaking. Being a zero is better than being negative. Minus five, minus ten. On the scale of evil. Especially in today’s world. Evil everywhere. I shouldn’t count at a time like this. I must be part of the group that, if there were actually a Day of Judgment, doesn’t deserve either heaven or hell. I’ll be left right here on Earth. The kind that’s neither fish nor fowl.

  But what about Sulamita? Sulamita could get a cadaver for me, over. It doesn’t matter how much I might tell myself that I’m incapable of doing certain things, my clandestine radio went on broadcasting, putting horrible ideas in my head. You think there’s a big distance between thinking and acting. You tell yourself that thinking isn’t doing, you say: I’m just thinking scabrous things, which doesn’t mean I’m going to do scabrous things. And that’s how plans are born. It’s merely a mental exercise, you say. You set everything up and at H-hour pull back. You elaborate a hideous plan that basically consists of taking advantage of the suffering of people in mourning. The details are macabre: you call Dona Lu, over, and say you know where her son’s body is. You tell a believable story about a fisherman who found a body in the waters of the Paraguay. You tell Dona Lu, If you want your son back, you’ll have to pay. $200,000.

  With the money I would pay off my debt and straighten out my life. The more I moved ahead with my macabre plan, the more disgusted I felt. And attracted. How could I think of something as absurd as that?

  At the end of the afternoon, when I parked my car in front of Moacir’s bicycle shop, Serafina came out to speak to me. She had just returned from visiting her tribe and was worried about her son. At least that’s what I imagined she was saying as I climbed the stairs that led to my room. She was so nervous she only managed to speak Guató. Stay calm, Serafina, everything’s going to be taken care of, I said, dying to be alone for a while.

  It was only when I finally got rid of the Indian woman that I noticed the presence of Sulamita, sitting on my bed.

  Hi, she said, showing me Junior’s backpack.

  Can you explain to me what this is?

  19

  It was Sulamita’s day off and she had decided to wait for me at my place. She had arrived around three and had straightened up the room. I organized your drawers, she said, changed the sheets, cleaned the bathroom, and when I was lying on the bed watching television, after taking a bath, I heard a phone ring. And it wasn’t mine. I noticed that the sound was coming from the ceiling. I got a chair, opened the crawl space, and in the area under the roof found the backpack with the telephone and documents of the pilot who disappeared.

  From the tin roof came waves of hot air that drained my strength. I took off my shirt and lay down beside Sulamita.

  Next time turn the phone off before hiding it, over. If she wanted the truth, it was very easy, I thought, all I had to do was open my mouth, over. The words gushed forth without difficulty or censorship. I told her everything that had happened, spoke of the fishing trip on the Paraguay River, the explosion in the sky, the plane crashing and how the man died before my very eyes. I spoke of my attempt to save him. Know why you found the safety belt undone and the doors open? I asked. Because I tried to save him. I repeated that information with a degree of pride, I wanted Sulamita to understand that before anything else I had tried to help the pilot, but she kept interrupting me. Why didn’t you call the police? Why are you working for his family? You’re lying, she said. What about this backpack? And this cell phone? She didn’t even wait for an answer. Stop, I said, stop and listen.

  Don’t touch me, she said.

  My mistake, I said, was undoing the safety belt, and if I’m to be judged, let it be for that, and for leaving the plane’s doors open. As for the cell phone and the backpack, what could he do with them? I asked. He was dead, I said. I thought they wouldn’t be missed, either by him or the family.

  You were in that plane, she stated, you saw that young man.

  I recounted everything again, explained that the pilot had probably been swept away by the current and devoured by piranhas. That’s my theory, I said.

  Outside, the children were jumping rope, and for a moment the only sound was the lashing against the pavement, synchronized with the beating of my heart. Without heeding the consequences, I told the rest of the story, said I’d found a kilo of powder inside the plane, had sold the drug, which was why I hadn’t reported the accident to the police. I spoke of my deal with Ramirez, said that Moacir was my partner, and went on talking until coming to the conversation I’d had with the Bolivian that morning. As I advanced, Sulamita withdrew, prostrate, as if my words were some kind of paralyzing gas. At the end she was sitting on my bed, her head in her hands, staring at the floor, saying that it wasn’t possible. It’s not possible, she repeated.

  I also told of my job and how I ended up at the Berabas’ house. I said something about vultures and rotting flesh. Deep down, I said, I must miss seeing my mother cry, maybe this job is so I can suffer with Dona Lu the same way I suffered with my mother, maybe the vicarious pain is a form of vicarious pleasure, I said, but didn’t use those words, I wasn’t clear. I spoke of my mother and my father, of how much I missed them both, mixed everything with Dona Lu and ended with promises. Nothing’s going to change, I said, we’re going to go ahead with our plans, deep down I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m making the greatest effort possible, I said, you have to trust me.

  I felt an enormous sense of peace after dumping my steaming sin on Sulamita. It was as if the burden was now hers as well, mine and hers, as much ours as the idea of marriage that she had shoved down my throat, I thought. I sat on the bed, tried to hug her, but she moved away. I ought to leave here and go straight to the precinct, said Sulamita.

  We remained silent for a time, then she asked me, how could you go behind my back? It has nothing to do with you, I replied, and she continued to inquire: What’s going to happen now? What’s going to happen to you? To me?

  If you help me, I said, we can find a way out of this.

  How? She wanted to know. You think you’re up to fooling the police, deceiving Junior’s family, getting around the traffickers, outwitting everybody? How are you going to get fifty thousand dollars to pay Ramirez?

  I asked if there was any way of getting the powder back. What are you talking about? she screamed. Do you think I can just waltz into the station, grab the drugs and say, “Joel, this belongs to my boyfriend?” Good God, you don’t have a clue about anything. You’re crazy.

  Maybe, I said, if you explained to your friends at the station —, over, but I didn’t have the heart to continue. At that moment Sulamita threw herself face down on the bed, sobbing, saying I had no right to do that to her life, to her family. How do you find the courage
to ruin everything like that? To destroy my dreams? I haven’t destroyed anything, I said, everything I did was for the two of us. Stop that nonsense, she said, you’re an egotist.

  All of it was making me sick: the heat, Sulamita’s crying, and there outside, the knife-sharpener working at his emery wheel. I thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sharpen my knives, just to get away from there.

  At the exact moment I had this thought, Sulamita got up, grabbed her things, and left. She slammed the door without even bothering to say goodbye.

  20

  I took a cold shower, and it left me more agitated than before. I didn’t get any sleep all night. It was very hot, and I tossed and turned in bed, thinking about what to do. What if Sulamita turned me in? What if Ramirez killed me? The hottest day of the year, the radio said. It said: sixteen trampled to death at a religious event. It said: Taliban stronghold invaded. It said: Iran enriches uranium to twenty percent.

  So far, so good, I told myself. I’m not religious, I’m not an insurgent, and I don’t live in Iran. And it’s still possible to run away, to return to São Paulo, over. Go back to telemarketing. Sell novelties that nobody wants to buy.

  I felt a weird sensation that alternated between deep despair and an artificial calm. As soon as I relaxed I became nervous again, I would go out into the street, smoke a cigarette, walk to the corner, trying to get rid of that affliction, thinking that the most that could happen to me was to be killed by Ramirez, go to prison, or return to São Paulo. The “anti-city.” That was how I thought of São Paulo. The counter-city that had turned me into an anti-I. Capable of slapping female employees. Still, it was one option. Besides, even if they hunted me down and arrested me, there was a limit to misfortune. They – Ramirez and the police – couldn’t arrest me twice or kill me twice, I told myself, so that’s all, prison or death, as if prison and death were just meaningless words. That’s how I calmed myself. And suddenly it was as if I had woken up from a state of confusion and understood exactly what it meant to go to prison and to die. Or to return to São Paulo.