I remained there only a short while. I’m certain Amália didn’t see me.
The next day the landless people left the highway; it seemed like they had gone far away.
That same day Amália disappeared. Otávio said he’d heard she followed the squatters’ caravan.
Now I was sitting on the toilet, elbows to knees, looking out at what the doorframe let me see of the rest of my hotel room in Rio. Kurt still hadn’t set foot in the room, he never left the hospital he’d checked Gerda into — I’d taken him changes of clothes many times. Whenever I went to the hospital Gerda didn’t look very good lying there in bed, often she was taken out in a wheelchair for new tests, but now I was sitting on the toilet, looking at what the open door showed me of my hotel room, and there, like that, I could only think that once again everything seemed like a figment of my imagination: I, who had never even been on an airplane, had gone first class, Kurt and I on either side of Gerda, our feet resting on cushions, and after getting to Rio, had checked into this hotel near Leme, a room all to myself, for me who had never before stayed in any hotel, not even the lousiest kind — I was now looking at a hotel room where I could stay all day if I liked, watching TV, reading, scratching my balls, sleeping, though I’d rather spend the time walking around Copacabana, Ipanema, I wanted to get to know the city and was eager because later there would be other cities in Germany, Europe — and so I got up, flushed the toilet, and decided to trim the beard that had grown ever since my time at the clinic in São Leopoldo. With the sound of each snip of the scissors I repeated a sort of mantra, a sound that I’d never be able to remember later, but that seemed right then to have been mine since the womb, and I repeated it in front of the mirror, with my face, little by little, stripped of the beard that fell in lockets into the sink, and repeating it brought back my confidence: what was being given to me would be mine forever, it was only a matter of getting used to the silence of my reasons for being there and no longer a squatter in a crummy apartment building, everything would be fine, and for this reason I repeated my mantra and smoothed my face once more in preparation for the rest, which would be even better.
I ran a hand over my chin, summoned the elevator, the uniformed operator asked me smilingly which floor — everyone was smiling at me in that four-star joint — I remembered I wanted to have a whiskey in the hotel bar, asked for the first floor, the bartender treated me like a prince, yeah, I shaved, I told him, also smiling, a whiskey poured over the stones in my glass, and the bartender was saying he hadn’t recognized me with my face like a baby’s bottom, then turned back to the same chatter as always, recommending where to go later, at night, beaches, bars, women, I barely followed what he was saying, but it pleased me to confirm that someone behind the bar was capable of busying himself with my day’s itinerary just because I had the money to pay for the hotel and leave tips. I was discovering that it pleased me to pay for the world’s courtesies.
In the middle of the afternoon, I left to walk down Nossa Senhora da Copacabana. I stopped in front of a movie poster — there wasn’t much else to do — I entered, and in the cinema bathroom there were a few men standing around smoking. I started to take a piss — all the urinals were occupied and I could sense the eyes of the men standing there in urinating position were directed at me. I figured out what was happening: nobody was urinating here, they all had their dicks out but were staring at my dick, all of them middle-aged, the smell of urine ferocious, from the cinema came an uproar that must have been a violent car crash, the screech of brakes, and in front of the urinals those eyes wouldn’t stop staring at my dick, and when I looked down again I saw that it wasn’t pissing anymore and, without my having noticed, had gotten completely hard — someone tapped my shoulder, I turned, it was a guy behind me reaching his hand inside a greasy jacket at chest height, he said he was a cop and wanted to see my ID, working papers too — I was getting dragged out from my situation under Kurt’s wing: if I got thrown in jail again he’d never give me another chance and I’d find myself face-to-face with complete shit all over again, this time with two arrests — I put my instantly slackened dick back in my pants as the guy tried to act high and mighty, demanding my working papers again, the faggots all around were dying with laughter. I realized that I’d been ambushed, and as I zipped up I remembered that I had very little money with me and that it wasn’t likely I could strike a deal with the guy who said he was a cop — then a plan for escape suddenly sprang up inside me, I didn’t even have time to think it through before I’d already begun to execute it, my whole body collapsing onto the cold, piss-drenched floor, trembling from an attack that made me drooclass="underline" dig my fingernails into the air, break out in a sweat, roll back my eyes until I could no longer see anything around me, all stiff, in my vision just dark and muddled shapes that I tried to break open with sweeping arms, like I was swimming breaststroke — I wanted to scream but couldn’t find my voice, flailing in the middle of those dark and muddled shapes, in vain, my strength having failed — a giant drain slowly swallowing me.
Suddenly my body calmed, normalizing my breathing. I didn’t understand what I was doing there, lying with my head in a puddle of piss, deeply inhaling the sharp smell of piss, as though predicting this would help me recover my memory, and the memory that had knocked me to the floor appeared, little by little, and I became fascinated, as what had begun as a theatrical seizure to get rid of the guy who called himself a cop had become a thing that had really thrown me outside myself.
And now I was returning, with a tremendous vertigo, incapable of understanding anything further: Who was this man helping me get up, picking me up by the arm and guiding me slowly, as slow as two insects going against the immensity of the others? Who was this man who guided me finally to a mirror, a mirror that didn’t verify my features or those of the atmosphere around me — didn’t permit me to know if I was still in the same place? Who was this man who continued to hold my arm and was asking me to splash my forehead and come with him, that he’d take me wherever I needed to go?…
Then, on the sidewalk outside the hotel, standing up straight again, touching the man’s shoulder, telling him something for the first time, saying goodbye, thanking him.
I wrapped myself in a towel and went to the hotel steam room. Kurt was there, seated, his head hanging toward his feet.
I came close and waved my hand in front of my face, trying to make a clearing in the steam: Kurt had gotten even older, I could see that now. How? I wondered, and shook my head without understanding this strange dose of aging. Hmm…since when?
He still hadn’t seen me, just a few feet away, wrapped in his mists.
Suddenly he saw me. I had the urge to retreat, to hide myself amid the steam.
I’m exhausted, he said. Tonight I’ll sleep at the hotel. I need you to stay at the hospital with Gerda. You should go soon, he concluded, and returned his gaze to the direction of his feet, absorbed in his thoughts.
I switched on the lamp, and saw Gerda sleeping, her breath blowing a few strands of blue hair near her lip. I swallowed a lump in my throat, not because of Gerda’s condition, but because I abruptly discerned how indefensible my presence there was: What was I doing in a Rio hospital room, beside a sick and practically unknown woman?
Wouldn’t it be better to leave the room and try to forget about the existence of Kurt and Gerda, and find some less blind situation, one as clear as my hand, which opened like a fan in front of the lampshade, my fingers the succinct verses I’d like to have?
But there was Gerda, under my care.
I touched the hand on the white sheet covering her, and she opened her eyes. She closed them again.