The Body Snatcher (20 page)

What about Joel? I asked.

As soon as I got to the station he took me aside and asked who my partners were. Just like that, out of nowhere. With the expression of someone who's joking but speaking seriously, you know? I told him my partner was the owner of a junkyard and a cocaine trafficker. You should've seen his face. He wilted immediately. He understood my message perfectly.

Is that it? I asked.

C'est fini
, she replied.

We remained silent for a moment, holding hands. Give me a kiss, she said, and take me home.

First, I opened the window. I needed air.

37

The suitcase was opened and the dollars were there. Sixty thousand.

Juan started to count them, greedily. The scene was disgusting. He took apart the bundles of money, methodically piling the bills, all the time wetting his fingers with saliva, as if feasting on delicacies.

Ramirez looked at me with satisfaction. His hair, flattened and rebellious, now seemed like an old, useless brush.

Sit down. Want something to drink, Porco?

I thanked him.

Funny thing, he said, I forgot your name.

You can go on calling me Porco, I said.

Porco, of course. Now that we trust each other, Porco, we can grow our business.

We smiled.

We were in the kitchen of his laboratory in Puerto Suárez. Ramirez said that Corumbá was only the route for cocaine coming from Bolivia and that all the Colombian drugs entered Brazil through Paraguay. We can grow your business, he repeated, adding that now they had a partner in Paraguay and needed someone like me to get the drug into Brazil. I don't need mules, he said. I need brains. It's a great deal for you; extradition from Paraguay is real complicated. I can guarantee there ain't no risks.

I wasn't the least bit interested in what Ramirez was saying,
and he went on talking and I went on reading the newspaper I'd brought with me, where there was an item saying that Junior's body had been found. The official version was that a farmer had noticed a strange smell on his land and had discovered the cadaver in a thicket. The police “believed” that Junior had left the airplane, wounded, and had died trying to find help.

I continued reading the paper, and Ramirez wouldn't shut up. Out of every ten words, one was Porco. Porco chum. Porco friend. I ran my eyes over the other headlines. “Covered in a burka, Afghan woman displays her dirty finger after voting.” Goddamn, I thought, I've never seen so many ugly words together. Burka. Dirty finger.

It's all there, said Juan, who had finished counting the money.

Before I left, Ramirez put his hand on my shoulder and asked me to think about his offer. He also said it hadn't been him who killed Moacir. I found out he really did kill himself, he said.

It's sad, he said. The truth is, Porco, that good people always end up dying.

Now, I thought on my way back to Corumbá, I don't have anybody on my neck. Free, over.

38

The wake was a grand event.

The coffin was closed, and there were so many flowers that from outside the church you could already smell a sweetish aroma in the air.

The entire city showed up. Most of those present had no direct connection to the family, curious types who followed the news on television and were there for their own amusement. There were eulogies and weeping.

Dona Lu received the condolences and I could see, behind her mourning attire and her controlled expression, a certain peace.

Sulamita and I also went to the funeral the next morning.

The day was sunny.

I noticed that the gravedigger who'd done Junior's sepulcher was the same one who had sold us the cadaver,

At the end of the ceremony, we gave our condolences to Dona Lu and Mr. José.

Thank you very much, they said.

We left through the passageways of the cemetery, hand in hand, feeling the sun hot upon our dark clothing.

39

The next morning, when I arrived at work, Dona Lu was in a T-shirt and overalls, puttering in the garden. I'm going to plant azaleas, she said.

In the kitchen, Dalva didn't offer me coffee as she normally did. And when I asked her for a cup, she pointed to the thermos bottle. Get it yourself, she said, I'm busy.

Is there some problem? I asked.

She smiled in an odd way, a bit cynically, and said that José Beraba was waiting for me in the office.

I found him working, behind his desk. He didn't greet me or even raise his eyes to speak to me.

It's all here, he said, your severance pay, all that's missing is your signature on the paperwork. Starting today, you're no longer in my employ.

I started to say something, but he interrupted me. Listen carefully to what I'm about to say. You're going to leave here right now, you're going to call Dona Lu and say you've resigned. Tell her that beginning today you can't work anymore. Tell her you're getting married, you've got cancer, or make up some lie.

I stood there looking at the severance check, paralyzed.

Sign here, he said.

While I signed the receipts in a shaky hand, José Beraba went on talking. I couldn't bring myself to look at him.

If it weren't for my wife, he said, my sainted wife, if it
weren't for her health, I swear to you everything would have been different. I would have put a bullet in your cynical face myself.

I handed him the papers.

Get out of my house, you worm. That's what you are. A worm.

And he didn't even wait for me to go. He left me standing there, hearing the sound of his boots echoing on the floor.

Epilogue

One year later

The cow didn't look well, and I was concerned. She was a present from Dona Lu for our wedding, a purebred, and I didn't want to take any chances.

Get a rope, I told my father-in-law.

Regina, who had come to the stable with Serafina to witness the birth, yelled in distress. Take her out of here, I said to Serafina, we're not going to upset the cow even more.

My father-in-law brought the rope and we tied the calf's legs, which were partially outside its mother's belly. I carefully pulled them, and gradually the calf emerged, along with the placenta.

It's a female, I said.

In the afternoon, after lunch, I went to the city with a list of purchases that Sulamita had given me.

In the supermarket I ran into Eliana.

It's been a long time, I said. Eliana was pregnant and married to Alceu.

I asked about the children.

Good, she said. I've got an envelope for you at home. It came some time ago; I didn't know how to find you.

I gave her and Alceu a lift, and when we got to her house she gave me the envelope.

I opened it and saw a photo of Rita, in a bikini, with a little girl in her lap and the two of them having ice cream at the beach.

“If you want to meet your daughter, we're here. Life in Rio is wonderful, it has nothing to do with the smell of cow dung, or that collection of rednecks in Corumbá.”

I stood there on the sidewalk, looking at the photo. Damn, Rita, the girl looks like me. I burned the photo, with a heavy heart. Who can predict the turns the world takes?

When I arrived at the ranch, Sulamita was in the garden, with Regina and her mother. Her belly was large; our child would be born in two months.

Did you see the palms I planted? Sulamita asked, showing me the seedlings. A green meadow stretched into the distance, with small copses the previous owner had planted.

The sun was setting and a pleasant breeze was blowing in our direction.

I sat down beside them to savor the landscape. There's no place prettier than the Pantanal, I said.

Those palms are really lovely, said my mother-in-law, offering me a cold lemonade.

Frjshsg, Regina grunted.

Did you hear? She said “palm,” Sulamita said. That's right, darling. Palms, she repeated. The palms
are
beautiful.

Acknowledgments

I thank Jane Pacheco Bellucci and Roberta Astolfi for invaluable collaboration in the research. I also thank my editor, Paulo Rocco, and Marianna Teixeira Soares for their support and enthusiasm. As always, special thanks to my eternal friend Rubem Fonseca for his attentive reading, and to my husband John for being ever at my side.

The Body Snatcher
is a work of fiction, with names of characters and places freely created by the author, with no relation to reality.