The Body Snatcher (12 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

20

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

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

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

Saturday morning I went to the supermarket with Serafina, bought ham, bread, crackers, and cigarettes, and then we left for the penitentiary to visit Moacir.

He was even more dejected than at our first meeting and very worried about the children. He'd made his mother promise she'd take care of the kids. Don't let Eliana hit them, he said, Eliana is very high-strung. Serafina wanted to know what was going on and asked a lot of questions. Mother, he answered, it doesn't do any good to explain. All you've gotta do is take care of the children, that's all.

At the end, he asked his mother to give us a few moments and told me it had been Eliana who blew the whistle on him. How do you know? I asked. She told me so herself, she was here yesterday. Does she know about me? I asked. No, he replied, of course not. She saw the packages of drugs in my workshop and when we were fighting, when the cops arrived, she ratted me out. That's what happened.

Then his eyes turned red, he made an effort not to cry as he told me that Eliana had stated plainly that she had turned him in because she hated him. She said she's disgusted by me, he continued, that I'm like a dirty pig in the middle of those bikes. Since when is grease dirty?

I didn't know what to say. Maybe it's a lie, I ventured. It's grease, he said. I tried to calm him, I said I'd talk with Sulamita, see about finding a lawyer, and he told me it wasn't necessary, that he had already taken care of everything. How? I asked. A friend of mine, you don't know him. I urged him not to involve me. Are you crazy? he said. Who's gonna take care of my kids? Or my mother? I'm counting on you, he said.

I was disconcerted by his answer. It wasn't part of my plans to take care of Moacir's family, and from the way things were put, the price of my freedom would be something like marrying Eliana. Taking on her children.

Don't let them lack for anything, he said.

Of course not, I agreed. Never.

I left with Serafina still confused, asking more questions.

When we arrived, we found Eliana returning from the outdoor market with the little Indians, each one with a turnover in his hand. I asked if she needed anything and she told me the only thing she wanted was to be rid of Serafina. I can't put up with that old woman in my house any longer, she said.

I took Serafina to have lunch nearby, but neither of us managed to eat a bite.

Later, I called Sulamita. What's going on? asked my father-in-law at the other end of the line. She's acting strange. Quiet. Come over here so we can talk, the old man continued, maybe I can help you two. I give good advice. I'm your friend. By the way, I need a favor from you. Father to son. An advance, he said, as if I were his boss. The chance to buy my neighbor's VW has come up. Can't do it right now, I said. And tell Sulamita I called, over.

I spent the rest of the day in my room, with Serafina beside me, silently braiding straw, and at certain moments her presence was even comforting. From time to time, when I closed my eyes, my plan, over, slowly formed like a gigantic wave that started through a crack in my tectonic plates in the deepest and darkest part of my ocean and came rushing forward, gaining force and volume. The argument for me to go ahead was also powerful: if I had been rich when my father disappeared, and if at the time someone had phoned to propose a trade, my money for my father's body, I wouldn't have hesitated for a second. I'd have paid. My plan, per se,
wouldn't do any harm to Dona Lu. She had money to burn. In a way, I'd even be doing the family a favor, since it's by burying our dead that they die once and for all and leave us in peace. The problem, over, was the cadaver. Where to find a cadaver?

Sunday was worse than Saturday. Sulamita didn't answer my calls. I felt numb, torpid, and heavy because of the heat.

Serafina brought me a cold fish broth. While I ate it, in bed, the Indian woman taught me, for the first time, an expression in Guató,
infani
, whose meaning, she explained, was “it's awful.”

I only got out of bed when, around three o'clock, Dalva phoned, asking if I could pick up José at the airport.

On the way back, the rancher told me how worried he was about Dona Lu's health. I know, he said, I know deep down that Junior is dead, but she won't believe it until she sees our son's body. The word “body” infused me with courage. Act quickly, over.

When I returned home, the Indian kids were in my bedroom, playing hide-and-seek. I threw everyone out and lay down, my head roiling with ideas.

And then, at seven o'clock, I heard a sound on the stairs.

I ran to open the door and saw Sulamita coming toward me.

As I embraced her, I noticed from the sour smell of her clothes and hair that she had come from the morgue.

She took my hand and said she needed to show me something. It's very important.

Infani
, I thought, as we headed out to my car.

21

Sulamita pulled back the sheet, uncovering the naked body of Moacir on the morgue table.

I stepped back in sudden panic, unable to take my eyes off the coarsely sewn cut that began at the pubis and ended high in the chest. That was what I was afraid of, over. The legs had also been cut open and stitched. It's a common procedure in the autopsy of people who suffer violent deaths, Sulamita explained.

I could barely keep my balance, I was sweating, nauseated at the putrid smell mixed with bleach. It's the end, I thought, supporting myself against the wall.

Eliana doesn't know yet, she said. And while she told me that Moacir had been found in his cell, tied to a sheet attached to the bars on the window, a single idea came into my head: I was next.

It was this morning, Sulamita continued, when the prisoners were sunning themselves in the courtyard.

They're going to kill me, I said. They're sending me a message.

You think, she answered, that didn't occur to me when I saw Moacir on the table? That I didn't think about you and everything you told me the day before yesterday? I wasn't even supposed to be at the autopsy. I was just leaving my shift. I asked Rosana, the coroner who works here, to let me follow the procedure. I did more than that; I called Joel and asked to read the inquest.

I asked Sulamita if a suicide couldn't be faked. Maybe, I said, maybe someone tied a sheet to those bars and forced Moacir to hang himself.

Know what we do when a cadaver arrives here? Sulamita said. We sit down beside it and have a chat. A corpse tells all. We turn it inside out, rip it from head to toe, take out the viscera, scalp it, pull out the brain. Look, she said, indicating a deep, irregular groove in Moacir's neck. This mark is the sign of hanging. If it were a crime, it would be around the entire neck, not just in front. And there would be signs of a struggle. Look here, she said, pointing to the shoulder region, there are no scratches or contusions.

I need protection, I insisted. They killed Moacir, whatever you may have seen in the autopsy. The Bolivians told me they were going to kill him.

I told her in detail about my conversation with Ramirez, said that I'd be the next one and that if I didn't pay the debt I'd be found floating in the river or hanged like Moacir. I need police protection, I said. I repeated it several times, begging her to believe me, and the more Sulamita asked me to stay calm, the more nervous I became. I said: You're like those detectives in bad crime movies that get in the way of the investigation and let innocent people die.

Who's innocent? You? she asked. I didn't like the way she said it.

I was shaking uncontrollably. You don't understand, I said. I need protection.

You're the one who doesn't understand, she interrupted. Stop talking nonsense. It was a suicide, and it isn't the police or the Bolivians saying it. It's me. Yours truly. And what's this idiotic talk about protection? Do you by some chance want to go to the precinct and confess you're the owner of the cocaine found at Moacir's? Is that your plan? If it is, go right
ahead. Because those guys only provide protection – and it's crappy protection that's not going to solve anything if somebody really wants to kill you – if you go there and do what Moacir never did at any time. Open his mouth. Moacir was very decent. He protected you.

The idea of turning myself in didn't strike me as totally bad. But if they had killed Moacir inside the penitentiary, why wouldn't they kill me too?

Sulamita took me outside. Go to the car, she said. She returned minutes later with a Coca-Cola. You've got to understand one thing, she said. I really did check. I went to the penitentiary after the autopsy. I spoke to Joel. I spoke with Alfredo, the jailer who found Moacir in the morning. He told me that when he went into the cell, Moacir still had an erection, he had just ejaculated. Yes, it was suicide, she said. All the elements point to suicide.

We stood there, with me trembling and drinking Coca-Cola, while I thought about whether there was some way for me to escape.

The only way out was my plan. Project Cadaver, over.

22

The day was rainy, but even so, people kept on arriving. Some merely looked at the deceased and left. Others weren't satisfied with that little and wanted details about the suicide. They came not because they had known or liked the bicycle repairman but because it wasn't often that someone killed themselves in those parts. I thought, observing the amusement of the intruders, people here don't kill themselves, they just die. From a shot to the chest. That's how they die. They fall from scaffolding. They're run over. Or they simply rot. If I had to kill myself, said one old woman, it would never be with a rope. Even dogs kill each other, another said.

The coffin sat between the stove and the sofa. Serafina, who had spent the night keeping vigil over the body, was now dozing, leaning over the corpse.

Sitting beside Alceu, Eliana buzzed constantly like some happy bee. Whispering in Alceu's ear the entire time, she paid no attention to anyone but the butcher, not even looking at her husband's corpse.

Stop staring at her, said Sulamita, you don't have anything to do with it.

She can't act that way, I said. Not in front of everybody.