Free The Body Snatcher by Patricia Melo Page B

courage and looked behind me and saw Carlão leaving, the gun in his hand.
    Rita sobbed, trembling. Stay calm, I said.
    I thought we had sunk as low as we could. But things were going to get a lot worse.

16
    Collapse, over, I told myself at the hospital. I was trying to stay calm, so was Sulamita. But Sulamita had one curious characteristic. She was capable of sinking into the mud of her own life, to succumb to her private bog, but when it was somebody else in the swamp, she would rise to the occasion, start up her tractor and go about removing and pushing aside the rubble with great ability.
    It was she who took the reins in the situation. It was she who called a taxi and came for us after I phoned the morgue, where she was on duty in the middle of the night, telling her what had happened. We had walked for over two hours before finding an inn where we could ask for help. Rita could barely manage to speak. On the way to the hospital I made up a bunch of lies to tell Sulamita, said I was with Carlão and Rita having a beer at their house when they started fighting, that we went to the inn together and Carlão, who was drunk, lost control and had a fit on the way back. Thanks to me, I said, the worst was averted.
    At the hospital, after Rita was attended to, Sulamita insisted that I report Carlão. Is that cousin of yours a psychopath? He almost killed the girl. It’s very likely she’ll lose the baby.
    You always ask me why I don’t spend time with my cousin, I replied. Now you know. Carlão is crazy, Rita is crazy, their lives are total confusion, and I don’t feel like being part of it.
    I had been very clear with Rita before Sulamita came forus at the inn. I said, If you tell Sulamita anything, if you hurt my fiancée – my exact word, fiancée – I’ll rearrange your face myself. Afterward I felt sorry for being so coarse. At that moment Rita had ceased to be a girl with a bombastic smile and looked more like a slender thread, an insignificant little thing, but nevertheless her ability to do me in, to grind me into dust, was still enormous.
    Rita was in the hospital for three days, and during that time it was Sulamita who looked after her. She took clothes, magazines, fruit, sat at her side and held her hand, saying, Rest easy, you’re not going to lose the baby. Everything’s all right. You’re going to be okay. We’re going to help you. Do you want me to let your mother know? Your father? Your brothers and sisters? Rita didn’t have anyone, or at least that’s what she said. We’re your family, said Sulamita, wracked with pity for Rita. We’ll take care of you. She repeated that talk of family endlessly.
    Do we need to say those things? I whispered in Sulamita’s ear. Rita was sleeping, but I was afraid she was just faking. Of course we do, Sulamita answered. She’s your cousin. She’s not my cousin, I said, Carlão is my cousin. She is your cousin. And she could be lying on my table, said Sulamita. Instead of meeting her here, the most likely thing, considering what happened, was that I would receive her there, in the morgue, that way, you know how. Cold. But she’s warm. We have to take care of her. Put your hand on her arm, it’s warm, isn’t it? And she repeated the question as if wanting assurance that Rita was alive. Touch is the real difference, she said. I mean, on my table the touch is the same, it’s skin, it’s flesh, but it’s cold. It looks human, it is human, but the temperature says something else. Disgusting. That was the word she used. And Rita is warm, she continued; we have to be happy about that. Don’t you think she’s warm?
    We spoke softly. Sulamita believed Rita was sleeping, but I saw in that swollen, purplish mouth a certain intent that I knew well, the beginning of Rita’s smile, a pilot-smile, the smile of a hooker not worth a plug nickel.
    When Rita was released,