jurisprudent
08-04-2010, 11:35 AM
This is an editted version. Feedback will be appreciated.
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In the beginning he wanted to know everything – her steps from early morning to late evening, all the places she went to, all the people she met. It caused him so much pain but he wanted to know it all, to face it and look straight into it, regardless of the spasms his soul would suffer. He wanted to see everything photographed and he was used to sending agents to follow her, taking pictures of her in a fashionable shop or café, at a charity event or with a young man, possibly a lover. Later, he decided to spare himself, to turn away from that misery. Now he did not even want to know what she was doing. It was enough to see her at home - he could imagine her life while he was in his office in the company. The pain was still there, a little cancer in the caverns of his soul.
Unfortunately, sometimes Pedro would call one of his agents and order a few photos just to have an idea of her life. When he was at home, she was out; when she was in, he was in the office. They did not talk much and, more or less, they did not have much to tell each other. He was still attracted by her, she was still a good-looking woman, ageing but elegant. He did not keep track of her accounts, he did not care how she was spending money. Money has never been a problem, he was always seeking only attention, nothing else. Today, as he saw the recent photos of her - walking down the beach, in a nice blue summer dress, with a much younger man - he did not feel the rage he was used to years ago, neither the despair that would twist him at the sight of her lovers. He felt only bitterness, a strange liquid feeling in his chest, as if he was filled by a poisonous substance crawling from his belly up to his dry mouth.
In the afternoon, he left the office under the radiance of the summer Rio sun. The office was located in a high business building, away from the relaxed feel of the beaches, but he had never cared much about that. Getting into his car, he thought that he had never cared for things outside work and family. They used to have nice holidays in the past, going to USA, back to Europe, Thailand or Egypt. Later, as they did not have children, there was not much to keep them together travelling; he would prefer to be dealing with his real estate business, while she was enjoying herself. Perhaps the sole meaningful activity she has kept doing all the time was her love for charity; she was still in the boards of several foundations.
This afternoon he was going with Claudia to a play, a fund-raiser for a children hospital in the poor slums of Rio. Aware of her taste for precious and luxurious things, he has always been a bit astounded by her passionate desire to submerge in the shackled shelters for poor people, where the children were running half-naked in the dust and dirt of the narrow streets, where they would either die drunk or drugged or find escape playing football. He hated the slums, he had never respected the poor and vulnerable. He made his way through the ocean of challenges and could not understand those without the guts to fight to the top. But he always went to charity events, writing impressive cheques just to cheer her. He still loved the sudden gleam of her smile, a bit girlish and childish, when she was pleased to the bottom of her heart - just a snapshot of emotionality he could rarely see in their everyday life.
The play was staged in a small theatre in the city centre. Claudia arrived early in the morning to manage the event, calling the invited to ensure their attendance, rehearsing with the actors, speaking with some journalists that came to write about the fund-raiser. He found her at the front row, waiting for him. A quick cold nod, even without looking at him; she pointed to the seat for him and disappeared, coming back when it started getting dark. Red skirt and white shirt, light make up, a golden necklace. She was over forty, with wrinkles creeping on her face like cracks in an ancient vase, opening an insight into her, into something she did not want to be seen. She hated the signs of time, the idea of being old. She was always using creams to fight off the spears of years and conceal their wounds upon her; and she was proud with her tight flesh, breasts, elegant legs. She kept herself fit at the cost of fierce exercises and diets and she wanted to be still as attractive as she was in her twenties.
At that time she was a very young media presenter, even not a journalist, in Paris. He arrived from Geneva, with bad French and even worse taste for clothes. A Swiss company had sent him as a foreign commercial agent and he was walking about Paris, looking for a flat. He found one, just over hers, near Foubourg Saint Honore. He was funny, clumsy, shy, not talkative; but she started taking him out, day and night, and this gave a thrust to their relationship. Now he was as sexually attracted by her as in those days; but she had shifted her taste long ago. As he was sitting in the theatre hall, watching the stupid play, he could feel both the hot waves emitted from her body, and the coldness in her figure. She would not turn to him, she would not say anything, even a word of reproach; the decomposing body of their common life was lying between them.
At the end of the play, a mulat boy, ten or twelve, went onstage and turned to the audience, begging for money. The sensitive ladies, wives of businessmen like Pedro, hurried to hug the kid and contribute to the fund. Pedro waited for her; she kissed the boy with a wide smile and talked with him, he was looking to her face with his big, expectant eyes. On their way back home in the car, Claudia was silent, he could notice the tears in her eyes. But she was sitting without uttering a word. He would not usually do it, but he decided to speak aloud and shatter the quiet air:
“Are you ok?”
She nodded, looked down and added: “I cannot bear the sight of vulnerable, weak, helpless people, people who do not deserve their pains.”
He shook his head and watched her eyes fill with tears. Yes, even in these days, she had such a compassionate core in her personality, which could still impress Pedro. The car went on.
In the hot afternoon of the next day, she rushed down the alley alongside the beach, disappearing in the cold marble entrance of an old but decrepit building. On the third floor, in a narrow flat, was living Ricardo, a 23-year-old actor she met in the course of organizing the charity event. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders, long black silky hair, the brown eyes of a jungle panther and plump, enticing lips. He was waiting for her, in the hot still air; she kissed him fiercely while he was closing the blinds until they found themselves in darkness.
They knew their bodies pretty well; hers was white, smelling of rosemary and eucalypt, as she was taking special baths to arouse Ricardo, to make him feel as if he was not sleeping with a woman of his mother’s age. She wanted to sense the tide of booming energy within, rushing through the avenues of her flesh, the magic of being forever young, always in the bed of young men, always adored by them. Actually, she adored these men. She would buy them everything they wanted, as if they were kids she wanted to impress and win their favours. She had three serious lovers before Ricardo; now she was mad about him and the strong press of his tattooed hands. She could feel herself gripped and twisted, returning to the twenties of her life when men were always older and stronger cherished her.
Later she opened the window and the heat of the tropical night started coming in; she left the narrow bed and walked to the mirror hung upon the wall. She was looking at her image - the flatness of her belly, the brown colour of her nipples, the blue streaks of the veins visible under the paleness of her flesh; her long legs were arrogantly distanced with the obscenity of a young provocative girl, her lips slightly opened and touched by the top of her tongue, her curly auburn hairs falling on her bare shoulders. She abruptly turned to Ricardo, lying on the bed, and asked:
“Tell me I am perfect, am I not perfect?” and she touched her hips, as if showing, with a wave of hand, her assets and advantages. Ricardo nodded and said “Yes” with his low and husky voice. She put on a gown and sat on the window, her silhouette leaning against the window frame, as her cigarette smoke was slowly wafting outside the room and into the hot humid night.
“Tell me about your husband, you never talk about him”, Ricardo said.
She released a puff of smoke and turned her face to Ricardo, though he could not see her expression.
“What about my husband…he is still probably a child. He is stable, intelligent, successful businessman, but deep inside he is still before his teens. Sometimes he is wise and reliable, sometimes he thinks like a kid.”
She jumped off the window and lied next to Ricardo, playing with one of his long hairs. “He was raised long ago, in an Eastern European country, when it was the time of communism. He wanted to make it through and put lots of effort, studied night and day, became a great economic specialist. Then, when being sent on a conference abroad, he sought political asylum. That was in Geneva; he did not even know French. It was very hard for him to escape and become somebody. We met in Paris, then he was offered to open the office of a real estate company in Brazil and we came here long time ago. I wanted it, I wanted a new place. New places make me feel young. He made his own company and lots of good deals. He is a very impressive men; but his time home, thirty years ago, when he was thinking day and night how to go to the West…as if he has never been a teenager, he has never felt things people feel at 16 or 17. And this makes him strange.” She cuddled into Ricardo. ”Let’s not talk about him, he does not make me feel young, you do”.
There was a photograph on Pedro’s desk in the office – some twenty years ago, he was tall, starting to put on weight but still looking fit, in a long dark coat. Claudia, Claude at that time, was leaning to his right side, in an elegant long dress and curly hair. He recalled they took the picture in a cold November evening in Paris when they were going to the opera. He was called Pierre then, a variation of his original name given in his home country in Eastern Europe, and had just started in the real estate business. He was earning quite well and Claude did not have to work; she was taking long walks in the shopping centres, meeting friends in the crowded cafes at the feet of Montmartre.
Did she have lovers at that time? Pedro did not know, he did not want to know at all. He wanted to feel that time again - her smile when he came back in the evening, the weekends in the gardens of Versaille, when she expected each centimeter of his clothes to conclude whether they were fashionable or not; the days when he went for a job trip and she called each morning and evening, asking whether he was alright, whether he could sleep well, whether he needed anything from home. He missed those years.
Pedro did not have many friends, only a few, and most of them lived in the rich neighbourhood where Pedro and Claudia’s house was. There lived a doctor named Joan Alvares, who was at Pedro’s age and they often played cards in the Sunday afternoons at Joan’s house. Today it was not Sunday but Pedro called him and Alvares told him to come at seven in the evening.
Joan’s house was built in a neocolonial style, with a large portico in white marble. He was a short, slightly plump man, very agile and emotional, very friendly. He owned a private clinic and was earning very well, more than many other doctors. Alvares divorced more than ten years ago and he was living alone, her daughter was studying away from home. Joan met Pedro with a smile, had a glass of whiskey and started talking, while Joan was smoking a cigar. He listened to Pedro, focused on his elongated face, then left the smoking cigar into the ashtray and said:
“This is mad, Pedro, mad. I can’t do it.” He went to the terrace and brought a new cigar. “I simply cannot say such a lie.” Pedro was sitting on the sofa, with his glass in hand, and was thinking of Joan’s words. “It will do no harm”, he said, but Alvares was insistent. “This is an awful idea, Pedro. It cannot work.”
Later that evening he got in his car and drove round the city, thorough the hot streets and the crowds that were slowly moving with the pulse of the night. Those hot and sticky tropical nights, he could not get used to them. The ocean was covered by the blackness of the darkness. When he arrived home, the house was lit by candles, there was an electricity cut, and he found Claudia in the bedroom, in a purple gown, meticulously covering her face with a yellowish cream under the flicker of a candle placed above the mirror.
She looked for a second to Pedro while he was putting off his shirt. She did not say anything, he was silent and concentrated on his work, too. He sat on the bed and watched the moves of her hands - how she touched the unnatural paleness of her skin, as if she was using a secret formula for a cure against the time and ages of the body. Her head held high, there was an aristocratic but ruthless feel in the air surrounding her. As if her entire existence consisted of the rich plush of her gown, the cream, the mirror and the rejuvenating efforts he made towards her body. He walked out. On the piano in the hall he saw the same photo again, of the Paris night at the opera, and felt his longing for these days, the desire to bring all that back.
Joan called early in the morning. “Please come to the clinic”, he said, and Pedro rushed through the jammed arteries of Rio. “I thought quite a lot.”, Alvares said, “I cannot refuse a favour to a friend. I simply cannot. Whatever comes. Maybe this could have worked in my marriage, too. But I still think it is a bit childish. You know what that means, Pedro. I don’t think you are a natural born actor. But I decided to help.”
Joan handed to him a neatly written page, it looked like a document, but Pedro was puzzled by its meaning. Joan explained: “That’s what you need. Arthritis. A flexible disease. It can be very difficult, it can mean only a few painful minutes a day. Great variance. At first, you will be walking slowly, you should pretend you are very sick. After two or three months, I will get you a wheelchair. I suppose that’s exactly what you need. She will have to care for you night and day. Or get a nurse. It’s your job to convince her to do it on her own. I have given a number of medicines, but you should never use them. Never. I will get you some simple pills, painkillers, etc. It will never harm you to drink one or two and they look all the same, she would never get the difference, but you should be careful not to mix them or take the wrong pills. Those for arthritis are serious. You should never take them.”
In the beginning, Claudia was flabbergasted. She even talked with Joan several times, he explained to her all the details of Pedro’s illness. He was spending most of his time at home, managing the business online. She felt awkward, tried to stay at home as much as she could endure; the sight of her husband lying motionless on the sofa, drinking a number of pills each day, made her feel bits of sympathy within. But when Joan said he should be moved in a wheelchair, she collapsed. Pedro looked so helpless. Without the everyday actions, he started to get fatter, his face was pale; his eyes were watching her as if she was his only consolation. She could not stand it, at first it made her cry and hug him like she had never did for the last fifteen years. The ghost of pain was wandering around her husband. But later she could feel herself suffocating within the four walls of the house, the sight of the ill Pedro dragged her to an unknown land of caution, regret, compassion, confusion. One or two visits to the slums could make her feel pity, nothing more, but now she was drowned by this image of tragedy. She could hear the rattle of the wheelchair like a moving coffin, from morning to evening.
And all this made her feel so old, her skin as if lost at once the shine that all the creams attributed to it. Claudia started searching for a nurse to care for Pedro. She was going out every afternoon while he was sleeping, and sought sanctuary in Ricardo’s flat. She cried. “I cannot take it”, she said, “I live in a hospital, no, a graveyard. He says his sickness is incurable; we will live, year after year, in this awful nightmare. I want to wake up”, she screamed, “I want to wake up!” Ricardo could only shake his head, everything in her life seemed to him so strange and surreal. He preferred the stable feeling of everyday pleasures of reckless youth, the jokes of friends, the beach, the girls. Claudia was afraid he would not like her, she was desperate that her skin now bore the signs, the smell of incurable sickness, death, end, pain, age.
Pedro found his new life not exciting; very boring. He was reading all day, watching stupid tv dramas or playing chess on his computer. But he was glad Claudia was around, though he could not see the passionate smile he wanted so much. But time was with him, there were many years ahead, this was the path to bring back his past and the old Claude he had met in his Paris days. Compassion, he thought, is the root of her love. Sometimes, at night, he would try to touch her, to feel the pulse of her skin and the warm beat of her blood, but she stared at him from her cold side of the bed with overwhelming irony, so he recalled his sickness and usually gave up.
She did not really notice what he was taking; only once she did watch him drink some pills and wondered what they were. He let her read the flacons, where he had put only weak painkillers. She read them twice and was astounded; the medicines were highly risky, had a number of serious side effects. After this she became somehow more caring, she always wanted to know whether he had done everything prescribed by Joan and if he had taken all precautions. Compassion and care, Pedro thought, are the roots of her love.
Claudia hired a nurse, who was over sixty, a friendly and tender woman. Pedro was not satisfied; he sensed that Claudia was losing interest in his illness, she was going out too often. Also, the nurse was well acquainted with different diseases and he was afraid she might recognise that he was only pretending. Claudia said she was involved in the organisation of a fund raiser in Belo Horizonte and left Rio for several days. She had a room in a small hotel, next to a school that needed renovation. But she had a number of other tasks to do.
After the end of the fund raiser, she called the cabinet of a famous doctor and booked time for consultation. She put on her long black dress, her white wide-brimmed hat and sat on the chair in the cabinet, sobbing and telling over and over again the terrible experience her husband had. The doctor was impressed. He said that the arthritis was very hard if the patient had to move in a wheelchair. She told him what pills Pedro was taking and the doctor was concerned. “Very bad”, he said, “there are lots of side effects. You have to strictly abide by the prescribed doses”, he added, “overdose will be lethal.” She nodded.
When she returned to Rio, she found Pedro disgruntled by the presence of the nurse who was trying to substitute Claudia. He wanted only Claudia. Not somebody else. The nurse felt deeply concerned about the irritable patient, she was wandering around the house, ready to appear at every call of both Pedro and Claudia. Claudia suggested that they might start taking long journeys outside, in the sunny alley along the beach. It could be a great distraction for Pedro; the nurse was very happy and took him out immediately, while Pedro was franticly trying to stay at home with Claudia.
As soon as they left the house, she hurried to the bathroom and found the pills he was taking as well as the prescription by Joan Alvares. She drove downtown to a chemist’s where she had never been to and nobody could possibly know her, and bought a flacon of the most dangerous of the medicines Pedro was taking. She got back, predictably, before him and the nurse. Later that evening she was keenly watching him gather the pills on his palm. She asked about them and he was excited to explain, enthralled that she was interested. He was taking three different white pills of the same size, which made them look perfectly alike. “One of them per day”, he said, “more than one of any of them is against Joan’s prescription, it’s an overdose.”
On the next morning Claudia went out. Pedro thought, she is probably shopping again. Now she was staying at home only in the afternoons, the mornings were the time for friends and shops. She was bringing so many clothes home; she dressed herself and looked in the mirror for hours and hours, trying to identify which one was making her look younger. During these sessions, she would not talk; she would not talk later, too. He was sitting in front of the tv, always thinking of saying something that might interest her, but he could never come up with any ideas. They had nothing to say. The evenings were better, because sometimes he could find a really exciting book and would think deeply about the plot.
But that morning she was out longer than usual. She did not take the car and walked to a post office, paid for a phone call and dialed Ricardo’s number.
“I love you”, she said, “soon, dear, soon.”
He sounded sleepy, as if he was suddenly interrupted while doing something requiring great concentration. But she did not notice that, she rushed out and back home. Pedro was having an afternoon nap and woke up later in the evening. They had dinner and she said she had a headache; he wanted to sleep, too, but he had, first, to get his medications.
“I am going to have a pill for my headache”, she said, “I will bring your pills, too”, and she disappeared in the bathroom.
“You know them”, Pedro replied, “one per flacon”. He smiled, it was so nice of her. He thought again, compassion and care, the roots of her love.
She came out of the bathroom holding the three white pills he took with a glass of water. Then he smiled again, she helped him position himself in the bed and he slowly fell asleep. His mind was projecting, again and again, the beautiful image of the wet rainy streets of autumn Paris - the alleys in Tuillery covered by a canopy of fallen leaves, her raincoat that smelled of strange fashionable perfume, while she was leaning to his side, under his umbrella; they were hiding from the rain, the clouds, the rest of the world. His breathing was so calm, he was asleep.
She was sitting on a chair, looking at his long body protruding under the sheets; his face expressed immense bliss. Then she stood up and went to the bathroom. The flacon that she had bought was placed in a small drawer; it had just been opened, only three pills were missing. She put on a dress and went out, making sure the nurse was well asleep. She walked down to the beach where the black waves roared and crashed into the rocks. She threw the flacon and watched it bounce on the water, turning upside down and disappearing into the kingdom of the ocean.
She woke up early, with a happy flutter in her stomach. The sun was already up in the sky. Claudia watched Pedro’s face for a while, it looked as if covered by wax, not even pale, a bit yellowish. Then she stretched her hand and touched his icy forehead. She touched his wrist, she touched his lips, they felt like made of rubber. No heartthrob. She swiftly jumped out of bed, carefully opened the window and started screaming as to make even the neighbours hear her. She screamed for three or four minutes and saw how a window opened at the façade of the house nearby. A new scream; she started sobbing, crying with a husky voice. The nurse appeared the door and Claudia pointed at the body of Pedro, bereft of speech.
The nurse called the emergency and everything afterwards merged into a hurricane of faces – doctors, policemen, neighbours. She was sitting on the chair in the bedroom, crying incessantly, her eyes were red and swollen. She was imagining the slums, the huts, the bodies of the sick kids, and that was making her cry on and on, while a procession of condolences was passing by her. A coroner examined the flacons in the bathroom, she told him of her husband’s problems and he concluded it was either a suicide of a desperate man or an unfortunate mistake of overdosing medications. In the afternoon, the body was taken and she sent the nurse home. The house was silent and empty after the cavalcade of people.
At sunset, she put on a beautiful dress and some make up to make her red eyes nice. Claudia walked slowly down the hot streets, feeling the warmth of the bodies surrounding her, feeling the multitude of people, the tide of faces. As if she has been released from a suffocating prison, as if she has been amnestied and now she was starting the new days of her life. When she reached the building where Ricardo was living, she rushed inside, in the cool marble entrance, smiling, laughing like a small girl that had run away from her provincial home into the big city. Yes, she was laughing, loudly.
Then she knocked on Ricardo’s door, positioned her dress as to reveal as much of her breasts as possible, and waited. The door was slowly opened by a girl of twenty or so, with uncombed hair, no makeup or lipstick, with two very sleepy, sluggish eyes that stared dumbly at Claudia. The girl was dressed only in a very long shirt, one of Ricardo’s, revealing her long, white, slender legs. She asked: “What do you want?” in a weak, as if absent, voice.
“Where’s Ricardo, who are you?...” mumbled in a dazed voice Claudia. She heard steps behind her and turned. Ricardo, in a t-shirt and jeans, was standing on the staircase, carrying a bag with packaged food in his hand. He had just entered and was looking straight at Claudia with a paralyzed facial expression.
“Who is that woman, Rico?” asked the girl at the door but Ricardo was bereft of speech. He had nothing to say, only his lips were slightly opened but without a sound coming out. The girl quickly changed her interest and exclaimed in a childish voice: “Oh dear, you have bought seafood!” Claudia looked to the girl’s face, then turned to the paralyzed figure of Ricardo, and rushed down the stairs, pushing him aside and disappearing in the brightness of the outside world and the wandering flocks of people.
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In the beginning he wanted to know everything – her steps from early morning to late evening, all the places she went to, all the people she met. It caused him so much pain but he wanted to know it all, to face it and look straight into it, regardless of the spasms his soul would suffer. He wanted to see everything photographed and he was used to sending agents to follow her, taking pictures of her in a fashionable shop or café, at a charity event or with a young man, possibly a lover. Later, he decided to spare himself, to turn away from that misery. Now he did not even want to know what she was doing. It was enough to see her at home - he could imagine her life while he was in his office in the company. The pain was still there, a little cancer in the caverns of his soul.
Unfortunately, sometimes Pedro would call one of his agents and order a few photos just to have an idea of her life. When he was at home, she was out; when she was in, he was in the office. They did not talk much and, more or less, they did not have much to tell each other. He was still attracted by her, she was still a good-looking woman, ageing but elegant. He did not keep track of her accounts, he did not care how she was spending money. Money has never been a problem, he was always seeking only attention, nothing else. Today, as he saw the recent photos of her - walking down the beach, in a nice blue summer dress, with a much younger man - he did not feel the rage he was used to years ago, neither the despair that would twist him at the sight of her lovers. He felt only bitterness, a strange liquid feeling in his chest, as if he was filled by a poisonous substance crawling from his belly up to his dry mouth.
In the afternoon, he left the office under the radiance of the summer Rio sun. The office was located in a high business building, away from the relaxed feel of the beaches, but he had never cared much about that. Getting into his car, he thought that he had never cared for things outside work and family. They used to have nice holidays in the past, going to USA, back to Europe, Thailand or Egypt. Later, as they did not have children, there was not much to keep them together travelling; he would prefer to be dealing with his real estate business, while she was enjoying herself. Perhaps the sole meaningful activity she has kept doing all the time was her love for charity; she was still in the boards of several foundations.
This afternoon he was going with Claudia to a play, a fund-raiser for a children hospital in the poor slums of Rio. Aware of her taste for precious and luxurious things, he has always been a bit astounded by her passionate desire to submerge in the shackled shelters for poor people, where the children were running half-naked in the dust and dirt of the narrow streets, where they would either die drunk or drugged or find escape playing football. He hated the slums, he had never respected the poor and vulnerable. He made his way through the ocean of challenges and could not understand those without the guts to fight to the top. But he always went to charity events, writing impressive cheques just to cheer her. He still loved the sudden gleam of her smile, a bit girlish and childish, when she was pleased to the bottom of her heart - just a snapshot of emotionality he could rarely see in their everyday life.
The play was staged in a small theatre in the city centre. Claudia arrived early in the morning to manage the event, calling the invited to ensure their attendance, rehearsing with the actors, speaking with some journalists that came to write about the fund-raiser. He found her at the front row, waiting for him. A quick cold nod, even without looking at him; she pointed to the seat for him and disappeared, coming back when it started getting dark. Red skirt and white shirt, light make up, a golden necklace. She was over forty, with wrinkles creeping on her face like cracks in an ancient vase, opening an insight into her, into something she did not want to be seen. She hated the signs of time, the idea of being old. She was always using creams to fight off the spears of years and conceal their wounds upon her; and she was proud with her tight flesh, breasts, elegant legs. She kept herself fit at the cost of fierce exercises and diets and she wanted to be still as attractive as she was in her twenties.
At that time she was a very young media presenter, even not a journalist, in Paris. He arrived from Geneva, with bad French and even worse taste for clothes. A Swiss company had sent him as a foreign commercial agent and he was walking about Paris, looking for a flat. He found one, just over hers, near Foubourg Saint Honore. He was funny, clumsy, shy, not talkative; but she started taking him out, day and night, and this gave a thrust to their relationship. Now he was as sexually attracted by her as in those days; but she had shifted her taste long ago. As he was sitting in the theatre hall, watching the stupid play, he could feel both the hot waves emitted from her body, and the coldness in her figure. She would not turn to him, she would not say anything, even a word of reproach; the decomposing body of their common life was lying between them.
At the end of the play, a mulat boy, ten or twelve, went onstage and turned to the audience, begging for money. The sensitive ladies, wives of businessmen like Pedro, hurried to hug the kid and contribute to the fund. Pedro waited for her; she kissed the boy with a wide smile and talked with him, he was looking to her face with his big, expectant eyes. On their way back home in the car, Claudia was silent, he could notice the tears in her eyes. But she was sitting without uttering a word. He would not usually do it, but he decided to speak aloud and shatter the quiet air:
“Are you ok?”
She nodded, looked down and added: “I cannot bear the sight of vulnerable, weak, helpless people, people who do not deserve their pains.”
He shook his head and watched her eyes fill with tears. Yes, even in these days, she had such a compassionate core in her personality, which could still impress Pedro. The car went on.
In the hot afternoon of the next day, she rushed down the alley alongside the beach, disappearing in the cold marble entrance of an old but decrepit building. On the third floor, in a narrow flat, was living Ricardo, a 23-year-old actor she met in the course of organizing the charity event. He was a tall man, with broad shoulders, long black silky hair, the brown eyes of a jungle panther and plump, enticing lips. He was waiting for her, in the hot still air; she kissed him fiercely while he was closing the blinds until they found themselves in darkness.
They knew their bodies pretty well; hers was white, smelling of rosemary and eucalypt, as she was taking special baths to arouse Ricardo, to make him feel as if he was not sleeping with a woman of his mother’s age. She wanted to sense the tide of booming energy within, rushing through the avenues of her flesh, the magic of being forever young, always in the bed of young men, always adored by them. Actually, she adored these men. She would buy them everything they wanted, as if they were kids she wanted to impress and win their favours. She had three serious lovers before Ricardo; now she was mad about him and the strong press of his tattooed hands. She could feel herself gripped and twisted, returning to the twenties of her life when men were always older and stronger cherished her.
Later she opened the window and the heat of the tropical night started coming in; she left the narrow bed and walked to the mirror hung upon the wall. She was looking at her image - the flatness of her belly, the brown colour of her nipples, the blue streaks of the veins visible under the paleness of her flesh; her long legs were arrogantly distanced with the obscenity of a young provocative girl, her lips slightly opened and touched by the top of her tongue, her curly auburn hairs falling on her bare shoulders. She abruptly turned to Ricardo, lying on the bed, and asked:
“Tell me I am perfect, am I not perfect?” and she touched her hips, as if showing, with a wave of hand, her assets and advantages. Ricardo nodded and said “Yes” with his low and husky voice. She put on a gown and sat on the window, her silhouette leaning against the window frame, as her cigarette smoke was slowly wafting outside the room and into the hot humid night.
“Tell me about your husband, you never talk about him”, Ricardo said.
She released a puff of smoke and turned her face to Ricardo, though he could not see her expression.
“What about my husband…he is still probably a child. He is stable, intelligent, successful businessman, but deep inside he is still before his teens. Sometimes he is wise and reliable, sometimes he thinks like a kid.”
She jumped off the window and lied next to Ricardo, playing with one of his long hairs. “He was raised long ago, in an Eastern European country, when it was the time of communism. He wanted to make it through and put lots of effort, studied night and day, became a great economic specialist. Then, when being sent on a conference abroad, he sought political asylum. That was in Geneva; he did not even know French. It was very hard for him to escape and become somebody. We met in Paris, then he was offered to open the office of a real estate company in Brazil and we came here long time ago. I wanted it, I wanted a new place. New places make me feel young. He made his own company and lots of good deals. He is a very impressive men; but his time home, thirty years ago, when he was thinking day and night how to go to the West…as if he has never been a teenager, he has never felt things people feel at 16 or 17. And this makes him strange.” She cuddled into Ricardo. ”Let’s not talk about him, he does not make me feel young, you do”.
There was a photograph on Pedro’s desk in the office – some twenty years ago, he was tall, starting to put on weight but still looking fit, in a long dark coat. Claudia, Claude at that time, was leaning to his right side, in an elegant long dress and curly hair. He recalled they took the picture in a cold November evening in Paris when they were going to the opera. He was called Pierre then, a variation of his original name given in his home country in Eastern Europe, and had just started in the real estate business. He was earning quite well and Claude did not have to work; she was taking long walks in the shopping centres, meeting friends in the crowded cafes at the feet of Montmartre.
Did she have lovers at that time? Pedro did not know, he did not want to know at all. He wanted to feel that time again - her smile when he came back in the evening, the weekends in the gardens of Versaille, when she expected each centimeter of his clothes to conclude whether they were fashionable or not; the days when he went for a job trip and she called each morning and evening, asking whether he was alright, whether he could sleep well, whether he needed anything from home. He missed those years.
Pedro did not have many friends, only a few, and most of them lived in the rich neighbourhood where Pedro and Claudia’s house was. There lived a doctor named Joan Alvares, who was at Pedro’s age and they often played cards in the Sunday afternoons at Joan’s house. Today it was not Sunday but Pedro called him and Alvares told him to come at seven in the evening.
Joan’s house was built in a neocolonial style, with a large portico in white marble. He was a short, slightly plump man, very agile and emotional, very friendly. He owned a private clinic and was earning very well, more than many other doctors. Alvares divorced more than ten years ago and he was living alone, her daughter was studying away from home. Joan met Pedro with a smile, had a glass of whiskey and started talking, while Joan was smoking a cigar. He listened to Pedro, focused on his elongated face, then left the smoking cigar into the ashtray and said:
“This is mad, Pedro, mad. I can’t do it.” He went to the terrace and brought a new cigar. “I simply cannot say such a lie.” Pedro was sitting on the sofa, with his glass in hand, and was thinking of Joan’s words. “It will do no harm”, he said, but Alvares was insistent. “This is an awful idea, Pedro. It cannot work.”
Later that evening he got in his car and drove round the city, thorough the hot streets and the crowds that were slowly moving with the pulse of the night. Those hot and sticky tropical nights, he could not get used to them. The ocean was covered by the blackness of the darkness. When he arrived home, the house was lit by candles, there was an electricity cut, and he found Claudia in the bedroom, in a purple gown, meticulously covering her face with a yellowish cream under the flicker of a candle placed above the mirror.
She looked for a second to Pedro while he was putting off his shirt. She did not say anything, he was silent and concentrated on his work, too. He sat on the bed and watched the moves of her hands - how she touched the unnatural paleness of her skin, as if she was using a secret formula for a cure against the time and ages of the body. Her head held high, there was an aristocratic but ruthless feel in the air surrounding her. As if her entire existence consisted of the rich plush of her gown, the cream, the mirror and the rejuvenating efforts he made towards her body. He walked out. On the piano in the hall he saw the same photo again, of the Paris night at the opera, and felt his longing for these days, the desire to bring all that back.
Joan called early in the morning. “Please come to the clinic”, he said, and Pedro rushed through the jammed arteries of Rio. “I thought quite a lot.”, Alvares said, “I cannot refuse a favour to a friend. I simply cannot. Whatever comes. Maybe this could have worked in my marriage, too. But I still think it is a bit childish. You know what that means, Pedro. I don’t think you are a natural born actor. But I decided to help.”
Joan handed to him a neatly written page, it looked like a document, but Pedro was puzzled by its meaning. Joan explained: “That’s what you need. Arthritis. A flexible disease. It can be very difficult, it can mean only a few painful minutes a day. Great variance. At first, you will be walking slowly, you should pretend you are very sick. After two or three months, I will get you a wheelchair. I suppose that’s exactly what you need. She will have to care for you night and day. Or get a nurse. It’s your job to convince her to do it on her own. I have given a number of medicines, but you should never use them. Never. I will get you some simple pills, painkillers, etc. It will never harm you to drink one or two and they look all the same, she would never get the difference, but you should be careful not to mix them or take the wrong pills. Those for arthritis are serious. You should never take them.”
In the beginning, Claudia was flabbergasted. She even talked with Joan several times, he explained to her all the details of Pedro’s illness. He was spending most of his time at home, managing the business online. She felt awkward, tried to stay at home as much as she could endure; the sight of her husband lying motionless on the sofa, drinking a number of pills each day, made her feel bits of sympathy within. But when Joan said he should be moved in a wheelchair, she collapsed. Pedro looked so helpless. Without the everyday actions, he started to get fatter, his face was pale; his eyes were watching her as if she was his only consolation. She could not stand it, at first it made her cry and hug him like she had never did for the last fifteen years. The ghost of pain was wandering around her husband. But later she could feel herself suffocating within the four walls of the house, the sight of the ill Pedro dragged her to an unknown land of caution, regret, compassion, confusion. One or two visits to the slums could make her feel pity, nothing more, but now she was drowned by this image of tragedy. She could hear the rattle of the wheelchair like a moving coffin, from morning to evening.
And all this made her feel so old, her skin as if lost at once the shine that all the creams attributed to it. Claudia started searching for a nurse to care for Pedro. She was going out every afternoon while he was sleeping, and sought sanctuary in Ricardo’s flat. She cried. “I cannot take it”, she said, “I live in a hospital, no, a graveyard. He says his sickness is incurable; we will live, year after year, in this awful nightmare. I want to wake up”, she screamed, “I want to wake up!” Ricardo could only shake his head, everything in her life seemed to him so strange and surreal. He preferred the stable feeling of everyday pleasures of reckless youth, the jokes of friends, the beach, the girls. Claudia was afraid he would not like her, she was desperate that her skin now bore the signs, the smell of incurable sickness, death, end, pain, age.
Pedro found his new life not exciting; very boring. He was reading all day, watching stupid tv dramas or playing chess on his computer. But he was glad Claudia was around, though he could not see the passionate smile he wanted so much. But time was with him, there were many years ahead, this was the path to bring back his past and the old Claude he had met in his Paris days. Compassion, he thought, is the root of her love. Sometimes, at night, he would try to touch her, to feel the pulse of her skin and the warm beat of her blood, but she stared at him from her cold side of the bed with overwhelming irony, so he recalled his sickness and usually gave up.
She did not really notice what he was taking; only once she did watch him drink some pills and wondered what they were. He let her read the flacons, where he had put only weak painkillers. She read them twice and was astounded; the medicines were highly risky, had a number of serious side effects. After this she became somehow more caring, she always wanted to know whether he had done everything prescribed by Joan and if he had taken all precautions. Compassion and care, Pedro thought, are the roots of her love.
Claudia hired a nurse, who was over sixty, a friendly and tender woman. Pedro was not satisfied; he sensed that Claudia was losing interest in his illness, she was going out too often. Also, the nurse was well acquainted with different diseases and he was afraid she might recognise that he was only pretending. Claudia said she was involved in the organisation of a fund raiser in Belo Horizonte and left Rio for several days. She had a room in a small hotel, next to a school that needed renovation. But she had a number of other tasks to do.
After the end of the fund raiser, she called the cabinet of a famous doctor and booked time for consultation. She put on her long black dress, her white wide-brimmed hat and sat on the chair in the cabinet, sobbing and telling over and over again the terrible experience her husband had. The doctor was impressed. He said that the arthritis was very hard if the patient had to move in a wheelchair. She told him what pills Pedro was taking and the doctor was concerned. “Very bad”, he said, “there are lots of side effects. You have to strictly abide by the prescribed doses”, he added, “overdose will be lethal.” She nodded.
When she returned to Rio, she found Pedro disgruntled by the presence of the nurse who was trying to substitute Claudia. He wanted only Claudia. Not somebody else. The nurse felt deeply concerned about the irritable patient, she was wandering around the house, ready to appear at every call of both Pedro and Claudia. Claudia suggested that they might start taking long journeys outside, in the sunny alley along the beach. It could be a great distraction for Pedro; the nurse was very happy and took him out immediately, while Pedro was franticly trying to stay at home with Claudia.
As soon as they left the house, she hurried to the bathroom and found the pills he was taking as well as the prescription by Joan Alvares. She drove downtown to a chemist’s where she had never been to and nobody could possibly know her, and bought a flacon of the most dangerous of the medicines Pedro was taking. She got back, predictably, before him and the nurse. Later that evening she was keenly watching him gather the pills on his palm. She asked about them and he was excited to explain, enthralled that she was interested. He was taking three different white pills of the same size, which made them look perfectly alike. “One of them per day”, he said, “more than one of any of them is against Joan’s prescription, it’s an overdose.”
On the next morning Claudia went out. Pedro thought, she is probably shopping again. Now she was staying at home only in the afternoons, the mornings were the time for friends and shops. She was bringing so many clothes home; she dressed herself and looked in the mirror for hours and hours, trying to identify which one was making her look younger. During these sessions, she would not talk; she would not talk later, too. He was sitting in front of the tv, always thinking of saying something that might interest her, but he could never come up with any ideas. They had nothing to say. The evenings were better, because sometimes he could find a really exciting book and would think deeply about the plot.
But that morning she was out longer than usual. She did not take the car and walked to a post office, paid for a phone call and dialed Ricardo’s number.
“I love you”, she said, “soon, dear, soon.”
He sounded sleepy, as if he was suddenly interrupted while doing something requiring great concentration. But she did not notice that, she rushed out and back home. Pedro was having an afternoon nap and woke up later in the evening. They had dinner and she said she had a headache; he wanted to sleep, too, but he had, first, to get his medications.
“I am going to have a pill for my headache”, she said, “I will bring your pills, too”, and she disappeared in the bathroom.
“You know them”, Pedro replied, “one per flacon”. He smiled, it was so nice of her. He thought again, compassion and care, the roots of her love.
She came out of the bathroom holding the three white pills he took with a glass of water. Then he smiled again, she helped him position himself in the bed and he slowly fell asleep. His mind was projecting, again and again, the beautiful image of the wet rainy streets of autumn Paris - the alleys in Tuillery covered by a canopy of fallen leaves, her raincoat that smelled of strange fashionable perfume, while she was leaning to his side, under his umbrella; they were hiding from the rain, the clouds, the rest of the world. His breathing was so calm, he was asleep.
She was sitting on a chair, looking at his long body protruding under the sheets; his face expressed immense bliss. Then she stood up and went to the bathroom. The flacon that she had bought was placed in a small drawer; it had just been opened, only three pills were missing. She put on a dress and went out, making sure the nurse was well asleep. She walked down to the beach where the black waves roared and crashed into the rocks. She threw the flacon and watched it bounce on the water, turning upside down and disappearing into the kingdom of the ocean.
She woke up early, with a happy flutter in her stomach. The sun was already up in the sky. Claudia watched Pedro’s face for a while, it looked as if covered by wax, not even pale, a bit yellowish. Then she stretched her hand and touched his icy forehead. She touched his wrist, she touched his lips, they felt like made of rubber. No heartthrob. She swiftly jumped out of bed, carefully opened the window and started screaming as to make even the neighbours hear her. She screamed for three or four minutes and saw how a window opened at the façade of the house nearby. A new scream; she started sobbing, crying with a husky voice. The nurse appeared the door and Claudia pointed at the body of Pedro, bereft of speech.
The nurse called the emergency and everything afterwards merged into a hurricane of faces – doctors, policemen, neighbours. She was sitting on the chair in the bedroom, crying incessantly, her eyes were red and swollen. She was imagining the slums, the huts, the bodies of the sick kids, and that was making her cry on and on, while a procession of condolences was passing by her. A coroner examined the flacons in the bathroom, she told him of her husband’s problems and he concluded it was either a suicide of a desperate man or an unfortunate mistake of overdosing medications. In the afternoon, the body was taken and she sent the nurse home. The house was silent and empty after the cavalcade of people.
At sunset, she put on a beautiful dress and some make up to make her red eyes nice. Claudia walked slowly down the hot streets, feeling the warmth of the bodies surrounding her, feeling the multitude of people, the tide of faces. As if she has been released from a suffocating prison, as if she has been amnestied and now she was starting the new days of her life. When she reached the building where Ricardo was living, she rushed inside, in the cool marble entrance, smiling, laughing like a small girl that had run away from her provincial home into the big city. Yes, she was laughing, loudly.
Then she knocked on Ricardo’s door, positioned her dress as to reveal as much of her breasts as possible, and waited. The door was slowly opened by a girl of twenty or so, with uncombed hair, no makeup or lipstick, with two very sleepy, sluggish eyes that stared dumbly at Claudia. The girl was dressed only in a very long shirt, one of Ricardo’s, revealing her long, white, slender legs. She asked: “What do you want?” in a weak, as if absent, voice.
“Where’s Ricardo, who are you?...” mumbled in a dazed voice Claudia. She heard steps behind her and turned. Ricardo, in a t-shirt and jeans, was standing on the staircase, carrying a bag with packaged food in his hand. He had just entered and was looking straight at Claudia with a paralyzed facial expression.
“Who is that woman, Rico?” asked the girl at the door but Ricardo was bereft of speech. He had nothing to say, only his lips were slightly opened but without a sound coming out. The girl quickly changed her interest and exclaimed in a childish voice: “Oh dear, you have bought seafood!” Claudia looked to the girl’s face, then turned to the paralyzed figure of Ricardo, and rushed down the stairs, pushing him aside and disappearing in the brightness of the outside world and the wandering flocks of people.