Perfect Days

by Raphael Montes

  Helena didn’t bring up the subject, and the detective himself never showed up again—in September of that year, Teo saw him in a TV interview collaborating on a case in which a group of young people had committed suicide in a gruesome manner. He had turned off the television without paying much attention to the story. He wasn’t in the mood to hear about misfortune and tragedy. Clarice didn’t mention Breno, which was great: he began to allow himself to feel that he was truly dead and buried.

  Over the next few months, she underwent a whole battery of exams, consulted countless neurologists and physical therapists, and attended sessions that included hydrotherapy and kinesiotherapy to recover the movement in her legs. Teo went with her and helped her repeat the exercises at home to stimulate circulation and stop her limbs from atrophying. Her progress was slow, they commented at the dinner table, when in fact it was null. Clarice had gained more mobility in her body and had learned to drive her electric wheelchair, and the pain in her back had diminished, but her legs were still motionless and would remain so—her spinal injury was strangely deep and straight.

  They needed to accept that they were expending a lot of effort and money on Clarice’s recovery in vain. To compensate for that defeat, Gustavo took it into his head to hire a specialist in functional neuroimaging to investigate Clarice’s memory.

  The neuropsychologist paid them a house call on a Monday afternoon and conducted tests well into the evening. “The brain is very complex,” the doctor said. “Human beings have a short-term memory and a long-term memory, which are controlled by different regions of the brain. Clarice was affected in such a way that she is capable of remembering past events, but her memory of more recent events has been seriously compromised. This kind of amnesia is the most common. After suffering a car accident, the person might not remember the accident or the months leading up to it. We can begin treatment to try to gradually recover these memories.”

  Teo was against any kind of treatment. He had made up a much better version of everything. He felt sick just thinking about the past. Helena was against it too, but Gustavo insisted on it, saying that stopping Clarice from retrieving her memory was akin to paralyzing her personality, which Teo thought was a bit much. He liked Gustavo less after that.

  At any rate, the sessions with the neuropsychologist proved fruitless. Clarice could remember only what Teo had told her, with the wealth of details he’d told her and the way he’d told her. According to the neuropsychologist, Clarice’s most recent memory was her graduation from high school. Her case was somewhat unusual, as amnesia usually affected only shorter periods of time, weeks or months.

  Clarice applied for university again, this time to study fashion design. Her new friends were as unpleasant as her old ones, but at least she didn’t stay out late at bars or listen to samba in Lapa. Nor could she dance with other men. At any rate, there weren’t as many of them now. Teo went out of his way to make sure that Clarice felt good, even if she almost always had a vacant or bored expression on her face.

  Sometimes he’d catch her observing him. Her eyes would linger on him, but he had no idea what she was thinking. When it happened, he felt stupid and impotent.

  Clarice wrote in a notebook every day. Teo imagined it was the draft of a novel or a new screenplay.

  “The doctor asked me to write everything down, trying to separate what I actually remember from what I think I remember because you or my mother told me,” she said. “Lots of people with amnesia have done similar things and it usually works.”

  From that day on, Teo began to pay extra attention to the things he said to Clarice and did with her. He avoided beaches, motels, and orchestra recitals. He didn’t mention Gertrude, because Clarice would ask to meet her. Just listening to a violin gave him goose bumps. She was somewhat addicted to sex, although she had to find pleasure in other erogenous zones—she especially liked it when Teo licked her ears. They had sex almost every day, but he refused immediately when, on one occasion, she asked to be handcuffed to the bed.

  Teo graduated in medicine and did his residency in psychiatry. He had become interested in the subject in his fourth year, and it had redefined his career. Helena and Gustavo bought them a flat in the district of Catete and helped out with the bills. They also paid Clarice’s university fees. The flat was pleasant, with wide doorways and a large bathroom to accommodate the wheelchair. Teo discovered that the previous owner had been quadriplegic.

  Though Breno’s body was never found, Teo remained in the habit of scouring the newspapers every day and ended up developing an interest in international economics. When she graduated from university, Clarice went into business with a friend. She worked from home, updating her Web site and sewing custom-made items. Nuances of her personality resurfaced, but he was already so used to them that he didn’t mind. He knew Clarice was unstable and emotive, and when they fought, it was always for silly reasons, like the color of the new casserole dish or the position of the sofa in the living room.

  Clarice’s inability to control her bodily functions continued to be an inconvenience. He bought her geriatric diapers and helped her change them. Sometimes she’d have nightmares and would wake up thinking she was fourteen or fifteen years old. Those were sad moments. It bothered Teo to see her suffering the consequences of her own irresponsibility after so long. This Clarice, obscure and intractable, always caught him off guard.

  Patricia insisted on trying to understand Samson’s death and gave Clarice a hard time. The time they spent in each other’s presence was always punctuated by subtle insults, but only once was the exchange of accusations so serious that Teo had to intervene. Patricia accused Clarice of having killed her dog.

  Clarice defended herself saying she couldn’t remember the dog. “If I were going to kill someone, I’d have killed you,” she said.

  That December Patricia had a heart attack while having dinner at their place.

  After his mother’s death, Teo felt a growing need to start a family of his own.

  They got married at São Bento Monastery on a lovely January morning. It was a very beautiful church, with a delightful view of Guanabara Bay. Teo was already familiar with the traditional Benedictine boys’ school next to the monastery and decided that their son was going to study there. He had recently got a job at the Instituto Philippe Pinel psychiatric hospital and could afford the school fees now.

  Clarice was beautiful in her white dress. Happy and tearful, she was wheeled to the altar by Gustavo. Marli attended their wedding, and that was the last time Teo saw her. He felt that his mother’s death had severed his ties to the past, and now there was only the future. A future of promise and hope.

  Clarice was having fewer nightmares, although sometimes she’d still wake up acting strangely, and it was very distressing—she’d shout and break plates of food against the wall, saying they’d been poisoned. Maybe their marriage wasn’t perfect, but there were much worse ones out there—plagued by betrayal, lies, violence, alcohol, and illness.

  Clarice’s pregnancy took him by surprise. Teo had been so involved in his master’s that it took him a while to recognize the signs: her missed periods, frequent nausea, and unusual cravings.

  She had done a few exams, and he took time off work to go with her to the doctor’s appointment.

  “Congratulations—you’re four months pregnant. It’s a girl,” said the doctor. “Have you given any thought to names?”

  They hadn’t talked about it, as they had both been sure it would be a boy. At any rate, Teo was happy, and Clarice appeared to be too. He realized that this was one of the most important moments of his life. He loved Clarice and the child she was expecting. He opened his mouth to reply that they hadn’t thought of anything yet, but Clarice interrupted him. She was sitting up straight and stroking her belly, which was beginning to bulge. She smiled at Teo and said, “A beautiful name came to me just now. Gertrude. What do you think, my love
?”

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

  Hypnolid and Thyolax are fictitious names; however, a range of similar medications whose active ingredients are midazolam or sodium thiopental produce the same effects. Unfortunately, the ease with which one can obtain such drugs isn’t fiction. Also, it is perfectly possible to hide a petite woman in a large suitcase with wheels. I have tried it and it works.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  For personal reasons, I didn’t include acknowledgments at the end of my first novel, Suicides. Nevertheless, with that book and this one, a number of people helped me keep my mind on the job and get to the end with some sanity. For this reason, I would like to thank those who attended the Suicides launches in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. More than four hundred friends and readers came to help me toast the beginning of it all.

  Cici, always.

  My grandmothers, Emília and Teresinha, for being more than perfect.

  My grandfather, a shirtless wise man.

  My father, who prefers not to read what I write but encourages me.

  My aunts, uncles, and cousins.

  Pedro Terra, first and best reader.

  Victor Schlude, for believing in this story.

  Cliff Landers, dear friend and adoptive grandfather.

  Daniel Ribas, icon of the literary world.

  Thales Guaracy, who made the ship weigh anchor.

  Bernardo Relvas, Natália Couto Azevedo, Gabriel Quintella, Bernardo Harboe, and Paulo Pepulim, whom I consulted exhaustively on medical matters while writing Perfect Days. Naturally, any error is my responsibility.

  Thuanne Baptista, Santiago Nazarian, Fabiane Guimarães, Kássia Monteiro, Luisa Geisler, Erica Schlude, Igor Dias, Amanda Regina, Emanuelle Stein, Luiz Biajoni, Lucas Rocha, Josué Oliveira, Jéssica Seabra, Leandro Rodrigues, Rafael Ferreira, Félix Fraga, Fernando Barreto, Georges Spyrides, Alessandro Thomé, Vivian Pizzinga, Dirceu José Fernandes, Janda Montenegro, Mateus Pinheiro, and Gabriel Leitão, for reading and commenting on my novels as I wrote them.

  Friends from the former BPGM Advogados, who were there at the beginning of my career to share in the excitement; friends from the reading club at the secondhand bookstore Baratos da Ribeiro, for the codfish cakes, beer, and literature; and the students of Colégio de São Bento, for our small brotherhood.

  My good friends Nylda Helena, Sonia Campos, and Norma Passos.

  Clarice Cudischevitch, for getting into the suitcase.

  Débora Guterman, for being so sweet.

  Christina Baum, Renata Megale, and the directors of the AASP (São Paulo Lawyers Association), for believing in me.

  Carola Saavedra, for her careful reading and kindness from the outset.

  Luciana Villas-Boas, the best literary agent, and Anna Cardoso, her incredible assistant.

  Luiz Schwarcz, Otávio Costa, and Flavio Moura, for welcoming me so well at my new publishing house.

  Alison Entrekin, who took such great care translating this story into English.

  Booksellers everywhere, who help make it worthwhile.

  Readers everywhere, who make it worthwhile.

  Finally, I would like to thank my mother. She was quite shocked after reading Suicides and asked, “Why do you write about such violent things? Try to write a love story.”

  Perfect Days is the result of her request.