Winning the Game and Other Stories

by Rubem Fonseca

  And that is how the Brotherhood of Swords came to an end. Before disbanding we all swore a blood oath never to reveal to the world the secret of the Multiple Orgasm Sans Ejaculation, which we would take to our graves. We go on having a woman waiting for us, but in constant rotation, before she can discover that we are different, strange, able to come with infinite energy without shedding semen. We cannot fall in love, for our relationships are ephemeral. Yes, I too have turned into a monster, and my sole desire in life is to go back to being a monkey.

  winning the game

  WHEN I’M NOT READING SOME BOOK I get from the public library I watch one of those TV programs that show the life of the rich, their mansions, the cars, the horses, the yachts, the jewels, the paintings, the rare furniture, the silverware, the wine cellar, the servants. It’s impressive how well served the rich are. I don’t miss a single one of those programs, even though they’re not of much use to me; none of those rich people live in my country. But I enjoyed hearing a millionaire interviewed during dinner say that he acquired a yacht worth hundreds of millions because he wanted to have a yacht bigger than some other rich guy. “It was the only way to put an end to my envy of him,” he confessed, smiling, taking a swallow of the drink in his glass. The dinner companions around him laughed a lot when he said that. The rich can have everything, even envy of each other, and in them it’s humorous; for that matter, everything is amusing. I’m poor, and envy in the poor is looked upon badly, because envy causes repression in the poor. Along with envy comes hatred of the rich; the poor don’t know how to retaliate without a spirit of vengeance. But I don’t feel rage against any rich person; my envy is like the guy with the bigger yacht: like him, I just want to win the game.

  I’ve discovered how to win the game between a poor guy, like me, and a rich one. Not by becoming rich myself, I’d never manage that. “Getting rich,” one of them said on a program, “is a genetic proclivity that not everyone has.” This millionaire had made his fortune starting out from zero. My father was poor, and I inherited nothing when he died, not even the gene that motivates you to make money.

  The only possession I have is my life, and the only way of winning the game is by killing a rich man and coming away alive. It’s something like buying the bigger yacht. I know this seems like odd reasoning, but one way to win the game is by making up at least part of the rules, something the rich do. The rich man I kill has to be an heir; an heir is a person like me, often without the predisposition to get rich, but who was born rich and blithely enjoys the fortune that fell from the sky into his lap. Actually, to relish life to the fullest, it’s preferable that just the father, and not the heir, be born with the gene.

  I would prefer killing one of those foreign rich guys that I see on television. A man. Their wives, or their daughters, are even more ostentatiously rich, but a woman, however many jewels she has on her fingers and around her wrist and neck, isn’t the bigger yacht. Nor would I be interested in one of those women who obtained their fortune by working, certainly carriers of the gene, clones who appear on television in suits. No, it would have to be a man. But since the ideal rich men live in other countries, I have to look for a rich man right here, one who inherited the money and goods that he enjoys.

  The difficulty in achieving this goal doesn’t worry me in the least. I painstakingly draw up my plans and when I lie down I’m asleep within minutes and don’t wake up during the night. Not only do I have peace of mind but a well-functioning prostate, unlike my father, who used to get up every three hours to urinate. I’m in no hurry; I must choose with great care, somebody at least at the level of the rich guy who bought the big yacht. The majority of the people who appear in the magazines published here in my country can be called rich and famous, but killing one of them would be easy and wouldn’t make me win the game.

  Every rich person likes to show off his wealth. The nouveau riche flaunt it more, but I don’t want to kill one of them, I want a rich man who inherited his fortune. These, belonging to the later generations, are more discreet, normally displaying their wealth through travel. They love shopping in Paris, London, New York. They also like to go to distant and exotic places that have good hotels with genteel help, and the more sports-minded can’t pass up an annual ski trip, which is understandable because after all they do live in a tropical country. They display their wealth among themselves (there’s nothing to be gained from playing with the poor), at millionaires’ dinners where the winner can confess it was because of envy that he bought what he bought, and the others merrily drink to his health.

  A guy like me, white, poor, skinny, and starving, has neither brothers nor allies. It wasn’t easy to get a job with the most expensive and exclusive catering service in town. It took deliberate planning and maneuvering; I spent two years at it. Perseverance is the only virtue I possess. The rich had the habit of hiring that catering service when they gave a dinner. The owner, the descendant of an illustrious family, I’m not going to mention her name, just as I’m not going to mention anyone’s name, not even mine, was a domineering woman who kept her notes and time charts in a small computer that she carried in a bag over her shoulder. She imposed rigid standards on those who worked for her, cooks, decorators, buyers, waiters, and all the rest. She was so competent that the employees, besides obeying without batting an eye, even admired her. If some employee acted in a way not in keeping with the established model, he was fired. That was rare, because all, before being hired, were subjected to a rigorous selection and training process. We did as we were told, and I was one of the most obedient. And the service charged a small fortune to cook for and feed those rich people. The owner of the catering service had the gene.

  Before the evaluation and training to which I submitted to become a waiter at the catering service, I did an apprenticeship of my own. First, I did something about my appearance. I found a good, cheap dentist, which is very rare, and bought some decent clothes. Then, even more important, I learned, as part of my solitary training, to be a happy servant, as good waiters are. But faking those feelings is very difficult. That subservience and happiness can’t be obvious, they must be very subtle, perceived subconsciously by the recipient. The best way of playing that impalpable dissimulation was to create a state of mind that could make me truly happy to be a waiter to the rich, even temporarily. The owner of the catering service pointed me out as an example of the employee who did his job by taking pride in what he did, which is why I was so efficient.

  The rich, like the poor, aren’t all the same. There are those who like to ramble on with a cigar between their fingers or a glass of precious liquid in their hand, there are those who play the gallant, those who are reserved, the solemn, those who sport their erudition, those who flaunt richness with their designer attire, there are even the circumspect ones, but deep down they’re all show-offs; it’s part of the pantomime. Which ends up being a true sign language, for it allows seeing what each of them really is. I know that the poor also do their pantomime, but the poor don’t interest me, it’s not in my plans to play with any of them; my game is that of the bigger yacht.

  I waited patiently for the ideal rich man to come along. I was ready for him. It wasn’t easy to get the poison, tasteless and odorless, that I transferred from one pocket to the other in my pilgrimage. But I’m not going to relate the risks I took and the vile things I did to obtain it.

  Finally, a rich man of the type I was looking for appeared at the reserved-seating dinner at one of the five tables in the mansion’s dining room. I knew his story, but I’d never seen him, not even his photo. It was the owner of the catering service who told me, and for the first time I saw her excited because “he” had just arrived, and I was designated to serve him personally. Rich people like to be well attended. I would remain at a certain distance, without looking at him, but at any gesture of command of his, however subtle, I was to approach and say simply, “Sir?” I knew how to do that very well; I was a happy waiter.

  He had arrived
, like the other guests, in a bulletproof car, surrounded by bodyguards. He was a short, dark guy, balding, with discreet gestures. His wife, his fourth, was a tall, slim blonde who appeared even taller thanks to the high heels she was wearing.

  There were eight guests at each table, four men and four women. Even though the service wasn’t French style, each table was attended to by a pair of waiters; my colleague was a tall black man with perfect teeth. There were drinks for every taste, even beer, but I don’t remember anyone at my table asking for that vulgar and fattening beverage. As per the owner’s instructions, the other waiter was my subordinate. Discreetly, I decided that my colleague would handle the requests of the other diners, who were so engrossed in their conversations that they didn’t notice the special treatment I afforded one of them.

  I waited on him with perfection. He ate little, drank in moderation. He didn’t use, with me, the words “please” or “thanks.” His orders were laconic, unaffected. The dinner was nearing its end.

  “Sir?” I approached when he turned his head an inch to the side, without looking at anyone, but I knew it was for me.

  “Half a cup of coffee.”

  It was the chance I’d been waiting for.

  I went to the kitchen and made the coffee in the state-of-the-art Italian machine supplied by the caterer. I added the poison.

  “Here you are, sir.”

  He sipped the coffee, chatting with the lady beside him. Unhurriedly, I picked up the empty cup, went back to the kitchen, and washed it carefully.

  It took some time for them to discover that he was dead, as he had rested his head on his arms on the table and appeared to be sleeping. But since millionaires don’t do those things, take a nap at a banquet table, those around him found it odd and realized that something serious had occurred. A heart attack, probably.

  There was a commotion, confronted with relevant elegance by the majority of those present, especially his svelte wife. The bodyguards, however, were much more nervous. The dinner was brought to a close shortly after a private ambulance took the corpse away.

  I think I’m going to continue serving the rich for a time. It’ll have to be another catering service; the one I worked for suffered a reversal of fortune. At first the newspapers said only that the cause of the rich man’s death was a sudden illness. But one of the weekly magazines published a long cover story talking about poisoning, with pictures of the guests at the banquet, especially those, men and women alike, about whom malicious insinuations could be made. The life of the dead millionaire, his businesses, his marriages and divorces, especially the scandalous circumstances of one of the latter, were given extensive coverage.

  The police are investigating. I enjoyed going to the precinct to make a statement. I wasn’t there long; the police thought I couldn’t have much to say about poisoning. After all, I was a stupid and happy waiter, above any suspicion. When I was dismissed by the interrogator in charge of the case, I said casually, “My yacht’s bigger than his.”

  Someone had to know.

  “I told you, we’re through here, you can go.”

  As I was leaving, I heard him tell the recording clerk, “One more shitty statement.”

  I won the game. I’m uncertain whether I should play again. With envy but without resentment, just to win, like the rich. It’s good to be like the rich.

  acknowledgments

  “The Art of Walking in the Streets of Rio de Janeiro” originally appeared in Cristina Ferreira-Pinto, ed., Urban Voices: Contemporary Short Stories from Brazil; “Belle” originally appeared in Words Without Borders; “Be My Valentine” originally appeared in The Literary Review; “The Blotter” originally appeared in Maria Angélica Lopes, ed., The Brazilian Short Story in the Late Twentieth Century; “The Game of Dead Men” originally appeared in Review; “Guardian Angel” originally appeared in World Literature Today; “The Hunchback and Botticelli’s Venus” originally appeared in Words Without Borders; “Kisses on the Cheek” originally appeared in Ezra; “Lonelyhearts” originally appeared in Brasil/Brazil; “Mandrake” originally appeared in Words Without Borders; “Marta” originally appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine; “Xania” originally appeared in BOMB; “The Ship Catrineta” originally appeared in Latin American Literary Review; “Winning the Game” originally appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.