He decided to dress her, but the black dress he chose—the same one she had worn with Breno on the night of the concert—was very tight and could hurt her. He had a hard time deciding between another two and finally chose one with a pattern of wildflowers. It was good to be in control once again.
He wanted to make breakfast but was limited by the ingredients at hand. He put some water on to boil and was disappointed that he couldn’t make oatmeal. Patricia loved his oatmeal, with a touch of cinnamon and cardamom, and he knew Clarice would love it too.
As he was trying to decide whether to serve biscuits or toast with coffee, a loud thud came from the bedroom. Teo ran to the door and saw Clarice on the floor, tangled in the sheet and looking terrified. Without a word, he went over to her, picked her up by the armpits, and tried to hoist her back onto the bed. It was hard, as she was howling and thrashing about.
“Stay calm,” he said. He took her pulse and finally managed to get her back on the bed.
He got her some painkillers from the drawer. He preferred not to think too much about the intense pain she must have been feeling. He sat on the edge of the bed and waited for her to say something. Clarice had woken up quietly and, instead of calling for him, had tried to get up on her own. She was as pale as a corpse and looked as if she were upset for some very personal reason. Her eyes stared at the curtain that he had closed earlier to protect her from the sun.
“What’s the matter?” Teo asked.
She shook and began to cry, but not in the silly way she had previously. It was intense, convulsive sobbing. When she looked up, there was a dark void in her gaze, and he knew that something primordial had died in her.
“I can’t feel my legs, Teo.”
He expressed the surprise that he had practiced in front of the mirror so many times.
“What do you mean?”
She lifted her torso with her arms. She wanted to sit up in bed but couldn’t do it alone.
“I try to move my legs, I concentrate really hard on it, but . . . they won’t obey me,” she said.
It was horrible that she wouldn’t stop crying. He stood solemnly, went to the end of the bed, and touched her feet. He took them in his hands and massaged them. They were flaccid and very hot.
“Do you feel anything?”
She took a while to answer, perhaps because she was a little groggy. When she shook her head, Teo saw a picture of sheer desperation. Clarice couldn’t feel anything below her hips, and he knew it. For an instant, he imagined himself on stage again, rehearsing positions and memorizing lines. He donned the concerned expression that he did so well—pursed lips, raised eyebrows—and said:
“I’m going to do some tests.”
He bent her legs slowly, moved her feet in circles, pressed on her thighs and ankles, and asked her to look around and try to turn her body by herself. She did everything with great effort, swallowing her tears. He thought she was being a little melodramatic, but she was so upset that he couldn’t smile.
“I think you really have lost the movement in your legs,” he said. He knew the rhythm and timbre of his voice had to be just right in order to sound convincing. “I’m so sorry.”
Clarice massaged her numb legs. Although nothing else had changed, she started to cry again. It was all so boring and repetitive that he wished he could speed up time and get to the bit where she’d resign herself to her condition and live happily in his care. But there was no way to speed anything up. That week was going to be unbearably long.
“Stop crying,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be callous. I’m just thinking about what to do—”
“Help me, Teo. Please help me!” She grabbed his arms invasively, clinging to him. “I don’t want to be crippled.”
“Don’t talk like that.”
“Do something! I’m begging you! I’ll stay with you forever! I’ll do whatever you want. . . . Just cure me, please!”
“You threw yourself into the sea. It’s a miracle you’re alive.”
He was nervous and preferred not to talk to her in that state. He wanted to sedate her, but didn’t have an excuse.
“I can’t walk anymore!”
“I look after a mother who can’t walk, as you know. You might be able to recover with physical therapy,” he said, knowing full well that physical therapy would get her nowhere.
“I want to walk now!”
Clarice opened her eyes very wide and stared at her legs, as if she could oblige them to do something. That same instant her torso lurched forward, her head tilted slightly, and she vomited. She pressed her hands to her stomach, howling.
Teo went to go get clean clothes and sheets. It was a relief to get out of the room, and he purposely took a long time at the clothesline, as if choosing the driest sheet—which was absurd, since there was only one. Her cries couldn’t be heard outside, which also reduced his feeling of claustrophobia. Before going back to the room, he put a kitchen chair under the shower.
“You need a cold shower,” he told Clarice.
She was covered in sweat and had vomited up her painkillers. Her movements were feeble, hands clasped to her lower back. Teo pulled back the sheet and tried to lift her as best he could, although there wasn’t much he could do as she was as floppy as a ragdoll. He carried her to the shower and sat her down in a way that wouldn’t put pressure on the bandage on her left buttock. He turned on the cold water and rinsed her forehead.
He helped her take off her dress. For the first time, her nakedness didn’t inspire anything in him. He felt mediocre. He liked her—loved her—and needed to feel it at all times, even if she was sick, filthy, or whatever else. He hated the feeling—the same one he’d experienced on Christmas Eve.
Clarice was shaking a lot and asked him to stop throwing water on her. Teo made her brush her teeth, but she threw up some more and had to brush them again. He dried her carefully, and at one stage she looked as if she were about to faint, so he said silly things in an attempt to keep her awake. Clarice was at the most critical point of her weakness, but he knew she was tough and very lucky; she’d be better soon.
He’d buy her the best wheelchair there was, motorized and imported. He had already researched models for Patricia on the Internet and knew that the best one cost about eight thousand dollars. It was a kind of colorful four-wheeler and would suit Clarice’s jovial personality down to the ground.
She vomited for the third time, and he began to think he’d never get out of the bathroom. He was somewhat consoled by the thought that there couldn’t be much else left in her little body. As he rinsed her off again, Teo began to think about what to serve for lunch. When Clarice was finally clean, she still looked exhausted. He left her in the bathroom and changed the sheet once again. He sprayed cologne around to mask the bad smell.
“Are you okay?” he asked after returning her to the bed.
Clarice’s moist eyes looked vacant. “I need to be alone.”
He shrugged and got up. He didn’t want to leave her side. Nevertheless, he headed for the door.
Clarice made a vague gesture to call him back. “Please tell me this has a cure.”
She was desperate.
“I don’t know. I’m not going to lie to you.”
“What happened exactly?”
“You tried to drown yourself, and the waves must have pushed you onto the rocks,” he said. “There’s a deep cut in your back and another on your buttock. The fact that you can’t feel anything from your hips down means you hurt your spine. The wound on your back confirms it, but I couldn’t see anything. You were bleeding a lot, and all I did was stitch you up.”
Clarice nodded her head as if trying to imagine the scene.
“I think the rock was pretty sharp,” he added.
“How did you get the handcuffs off?”
“You had put my hands down, and the key was
on the bedside table. You were really lucky, Clarice. I saved your life.”
“Saved?” The expression on her face was disturbingly inexpressive. Not a single tear came out now. “I want to die. And you won’t be able to stop me forever.”
Teo slammed the door behind him as he left. He got into the shower and stood there with the jet of water on his face. The admiration he felt for Clarice was turning into concern. He was furious and knew that if he went back into the bedroom right then, he’d end up hurting her. His rage was just indignation, he concluded, indignation for everything. He thought about the things he’d said to her and the things she’d said to him. Clarice still had feelings for the dead guy, who was very much alive in her thoughts. Her actions had confirmed that she was not of sound mind: serving rotten meat, burning photographs, effectively torturing him. Clarice needed to be protected from her. Teo understood that she was suffering, but he didn’t regret what he’d done for one second. At the end of the day, it had been for her own good.
26
Teo walked into the room with a sandwich. Clarice was asleep, but he had the impression that she’d only just shut her eyes. He decided not to force anything. The world looked very dark beyond the window. There was no moon.
He didn’t think it was necessary to lock the bedroom door. He ate the sandwich even though he wasn’t hungry and lay down in the other room to read for a while. As he closed his eyes, he thought that he deserved to sleep in the next day—until after nine even. He dreamed bizarre dreams, with psychedelic figures that castrated animals and chatted with inanimate objects. There was a lot of blood, as well as the colors white and gold. He awoke with the strong feeling that Clarice was dead. He imagined her body hanging over the bed, with the sheet he had fetched from the clothesline around her neck.
He wanted to race into the other room but controlled himself. Believing in dreams was absurd, and if he kept on like that, he’d end up going crazy too. He put on his flip-flops and went to brush his teeth. Looking at himself in the mirror, he saw that his face was already a lot better; his wounds were healing and might even be gone by the time the old woman came back.
He removed the razor that Clarice had discovered God knows where—possibly in the house itself—and the nail clippers. He found a new hiding place for the knives and other sharp objects, just in case: there was a thick pipe in the kitchen poking out of a hole in the wall behind a large pot. He pulled back the pot and stuffed everything that looked threatening into the pipe.
In the bedroom, Clarice was fast asleep. The sun was hot, although it was only seven in the morning. Teo closed the curtains and was certain she’d pretended to be asleep the night before so she wouldn’t have to talk to him. Such rudeness, along with the image of her hanging from the sheet, frustrated him. He made some coffee, and then, not in the mood to fix anything to eat, he went back to the bedroom. He pulled back the sheet that was covering Clarice and poured the coffee on it. The other three sheets in the cottage were still waiting to be washed—one dirty with vomit and the other two with blood. There was nothing else she could use to hang herself. Despite her condition, he didn’t want to underestimate her.
It was still early, so Teo decided to go for a swim. The temperature was pleasant, and he stayed underwater for a long time. The sun made his body pulsate. He wandered away from the cottage with the waves breaking against his ankles, which felt nice. Halfway down the beach, he turned around and came back.
His thoughts began to lose their vigor, and he found himself humming a sad song that he didn’t even like.
His mood was up and down: he thought about wars, massacres, traffic jams, corruption, and stray bullets and felt blessed to be in that paradise, free of tragedies any greater than those of the heart. Then he thought about Breno with his arty demeanor—violin in hand and not a penny in his pocket—and felt deeply despondent. Breno, like him, didn’t have a friendly face. But he had worn those rectangular glasses that had made him look older. To be honest, Teo didn’t really understand what Clarice saw physically in Breno.
He realized it had been a mistake to keep the glasses. It was so obvious that he was shocked he hadn’t thought of it earlier, when they arrived on Ilha Grande. The police officer had seen the glasses, and Clarice had tried to kill herself because of them. He ran to the cottage and took them from the satchel. All his misfortune was concentrated in that object, and if he got rid of it, things would set themselves right. He snapped the frame in half and stomped on the lenses until they cracked—they were very thick, Breno had been practically blind—and that very instant he felt a weight lifting off his shoulders. It was like floating in outer space. He went back to the water’s edge and hurled the glasses as far out as he could. He flopped onto the sand, laughing at nothing in particular. He swam a little more before returning to the cottage.
Clarice was awake. As he passed the half-open door, he glanced at her and nodded, without slowing his pace. He showered and got dressed. Clarice didn’t appear to be in a good mood, nor did he feel very receptive after everything she had said.
He made potato soup for lunch. When he walked into the bedroom, she looked down, blatantly avoiding looking at him. He placed the dish and spoon on the bedside table and left. He spent the afternoon in the living room, studying Surgical Patient Safety. He liked to feel productive and intelligent, but he had been much less so since he had taken off on the trip with Clarice. He also realized she had curtailed some of his habits and knew it meant something.
At night, Teo served Clarice the rest of the potato soup. He walked into the room casually, with no desire to talk to her. The awkwardness was uncomfortable.
“I can’t remember the day we killed Breno,” she said casually.
He shrugged. “I know.”
“How can I not remember?”
“Breno attacked you, and you went into shock. Loss of memory after a traumatic incident is common.”
“It’s disturbing. As if there were a hole in my mind, a blank . . .”
“It happened here, on Ilha Grande. The first night.”
“How did he find us?”
“I called your mother and told her we were on Never-Never Beach. She said Breno had been calling your place insistently. He’d call and hang up, make threats.”
“He wasn’t like that.”
“A man blind with love is capable of many things. Breno was never a good boyfriend. He lost it when he realized you weren’t his anymore. Your mother agrees with me.”
“My mother didn’t like him.”
“Breno was a drain on your talent. Didn’t you ever notice? He was mediocre, with no future.”
Teo sat on the bed, close to her.
“You’re going to want to know how it happened, of course. I’ll tell you so we can get it over and done with. Breno showed up in the middle of the night in a rickety old boat that he must have hired somewhere. We were at the table in the kitchen, talking after dinner. I made crepes, remember?”
“I remember the crepes.”
“It was a nice night. I was happy, and you looked happy too. You liked the crepes and the dressing I made for the salad.”
“A Thai dressing.”
“Breno came through the front door, and he was pretty worked up.” He put on a tone of regret. “You fell off your chair. He had a knife. He said he was going to kill me and teach you a lesson. I think he was going to rape you, Clarice.”
Teo reflected on the story he’d just made up; it was vulgar and dramatic.
“We fought. You helped me bring him down. We didn’t do it on purpose. Then we realized, he was dead. You were shocked. You cried a lot, but you managed to help me bury his body. We dug the grave in the middle of the forest. I don’t remember where. I was nervous too.”
“I want to find where we buried Breno.”
He nodded at Clarice’s legs, and she got the message.
“F
orget it, please.”
“What about the boat?”
“I filled it with stones and sank it. I did it all on my own because you had fainted. I thought you’d remember the next morning, but you didn’t say anything when you woke up. I decided not to bring it up. It was only afterward that I realized you’d forgotten everything, erased the night from memory.”
“I remember putting on my pajamas that first night. And going to bed afterward.”
“You must be imagining it—or confusing it with another night. After you fainted, I decided to sedate you. I had to. You were really shaken up. I bathed you and put your pajamas on you myself.”
“I’d never kill Breno,” she said, but she seemed to be saying it to herself, as if she needed to believe it.
“A few days later we were out on the beach looking at the sky, and you said ‘I feel that Breno’s dead.’ Remember?”
He saw Clarice’s eyes hesitate. She really had said it, and now she was wondering where the feeling had come from. She looked torn between what she thought she knew and what he’d just told her.
“I thought you’d remembered killing Breno, and I was worried.”
“I was just expressing a feeling.”
“I understand that you’ve forgotten. But your unconscious knows what happened, even if you can’t access the information. Without remembering the facts, you felt that Breno was dead. It was no accident that you said that.”
Teo couldn’t help but laugh on the inside.
“We killed Breno, but . . . he was armed and dangerous. We acted in self-defense. I really wish you could remember.”
He wanted to keep talking, but he noticed that Clarice was no longer paying attention. He touched her hands, but she recoiled as if he were an insect. Teo didn’t take offense, as he was determined to make her believe him.
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