Oneiron Page 11

  Rosa Imaculada pressed her lips to Lula’s glass-covered paper lips, locked the door of her home, and left with her son and grandmother on the bus for Fortaleza, for the apartment of her cousin’s husband’s brother’s friend’s wife, where they would be able to live in one room for a small fee until a new heart was found.

  Not a single person on the road died during the bus trip, and so Rosa and her family ended up in her cousin’s husband’s friend’s wife’s apartment waiting for someone else to pass away. Those were dark, hazy days, with nights that were even more full of impending death, and, what was worse, chillingly lonely, because Davi (thankfully) slept and Grandmother—now, there was sleeping! Each woozy exhalation hissed as an interlude to a growling snore. The whole building shook. The whole city trembled to the random rhythm of those croaking jerks of breath. But Rosa couldn’t sleep. Rosa had nightmares with her eyes open.

  Rosa had already waited 138 fear-filled days, punctuated by visits to the Ceará University Hospital for additional tests and mandatory stupid walks to keep up her health, which Rosa did obediently on doctor’s orders, even though taking any steps felt bad, and every swing of her leg felt as though it sapped strength from her pump. The panting began when Rosa got out of bed, which was where she preferred to spend her time. She didn’t have the energy to read any more, and even women’s magazines felt heavy in her hands. Rosa wanted noise around to cover the feeling of her heart, and that was why all day every day she kept the flickering television that was bolted to the wall turned on, watching everything that came from it, from reruns to new telenovelas, each more suspenseful than the last. She watched a serial named The Chilean Mine Disaster, which happened on precisely the same day (it must have meant something!) that she was placed on the heart waiting list. The bouncing flesh of her arms, legs, and backside had started to sag. Her skin had begun to turn gray, and her magnificent breasts had turned to dozing bats, mournful, empty leather bags. Her entire body felt like a strange, angry accessory that was welded to a separate headlike thing built of heavy stone. Time just passed and passed but never revealed its bottom, the end of the waiting, and day by day Rosa became increasingly sure that she wouldn’t get a new heart in time. Until, on the twentieth of December, she finally received the good news: a donor had been found!

  Anesthesia. Cleaning of the skin of the chest. Crack open sternum. Affix rib spreader. Attach heart-lung machine and switch on. Begin external blood circulation. Blood is oxygenated, temperature control carefully monitored. Blood back into patient. Ribs spread apart. Rubber-gloved hands grip stopped heart. An incision in the pericardium surrounding the heart. Heart disconnected from arteries and veins. Heart removed. Say goodbye to heart: Bye, bye, heart. New heart positioned, skillfully sutured to veins and arteries. Does it work? Yes, it works. Is it pumping? Yes, it’s starting to pump! Heart-lung machine turned off. Tubes inserted in the thoracic cavity to allow fluid to drain. Tubes set to exit skin at an appropriate point. Set spread ribs back in place. Stitch split sternum back together with wire. Sew skin tissue back together nicely. All done—there you go, Rosa Imaculada!

  * * *

  Rosa woke up after the more than three-hour operation pleasantly high. The doctor had two faces and eight arms. The nurse’s voice welled out of a hollow cavern in varying octaves, her words echoing like a church choir belting “Ave Maria”. Somewhere on the ceiling Lula floated and hummed a familiar lullaby: Nigue, nigue, ninhas . . . Lula’s beard had grown, and it tickled Rosa’s nose, prickling her sides, her toes, the insides of her thighs . . . Then Lula’s head descended onto the doctor’s shoulders and the long beard flicked under his arm like the tail of a fox. A warm, soft fur began to grow around the hospital bed, wrapping tightly, hair by hair, around Rosa’s body. At the same moment, many small orange suns sparkled into life along Rosa’s skin. Rays of light shone through the fur. It was bloody hot. Steam rose toward the ceiling. Rosa opened her mouth and tried to ask for water but didn’t remember the words. Rosa closed her eyes and fell back asleep in her fox-fur-beard bed. Lula bowed so solemnly that the doctor’s back nearly broke, clapped his hands, and took Rosa back under the blue duvet into a deep morphine dream.

  When Rosa woke up the next time, Lula was gone. There was no sign of foxes or suns. There was the familiar strange body with seven hoses coming out of it. The upper body was supported tightly with pillows, and thin, transparent plastic tubes protruded from it. Two drips were connected to the left arm, one dosing medication, the other providing nutrient fluid. The chest was attached by wires to a monitor with the new heart’s ECG, like a hyperactive green-light creature running on a mountain range.

  So somewhere under the blankets and wires it was beating. The grotesque, anticipated interloper. Because of which the body’s immune defenses had to be destroyed. Because of which the entire system had to be filled with immunosuppressants. They even stole from other species. Some of the antibodies came from bunnies. In order to negotiate a permanent peace between the transplant and its new mistress.

  So a warm welcome to worms, parasites, viruses, and fungi. Welcome to shaking, numbness, convulsive attacks of chills, hair loss, and headaches. Come right on in, most honored guests: diabetes, osteoporosis, renal deterioration, and cancer. Come in, come in, even the least of you, shingles and painful cold sores that spread all the way to the esophagus. Because a transplant will never learn to behave without making its homecoming comfortable! This is a small price for a new life, is it not, Rosa Imaculada?

  “Rosa, you’ve had your operation now,” the doctor said and patted Rosa’s arm. “Everything went very well, and now you need to start focusing on your recovery.” And so Rosa did. She listened to how her body felt. Despite the powerful pain medicine, she felt as if the new heart beat somehow more deeply and more on the left than the previous resident of her chest. Where the old one ticked, the new one hammered, galloping so fast she felt she might fall off. Was it even a human heart? What if it was from a lion! How could she treasure up her secrets in it then? It would instantly make mincemeat of them! A terrible, insatiable thirst tormented her. The heart demanded to eat fresh fruit flesh. Mango papaya kiwi kumquat. Give me carambola. Peel an orange. Rosa opened her mouth and mumbled. The feeling of thirst made her feel sick. The nurse gave her water mixed with honey. Rosa opened her mouth and tried to ask but couldn’t form the words.

  Is death gone now for sure? Can someone promise me?

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO COMES CALLING

  Death did indeed stay away. But Rosa Imaculada was warned: death will always be hard on your heels now. It will be like a violent ex-husband who wants to come to visit despite the restraining order, who flops down on the couch and casually asks for a beer, and, after drinking his beer, says like a punch to the gut: “I’m coming back, baby . . .” But you can’t let it move in! You can’t even let it get to the door. You have to keep death at a distance, and you probably can get it to stay far enough away with a few simple precautions, which you should follow for at least the next six months: avoid crowds; stay away from public events; no herds of children; hygiene; carry disinfectant with you at all times. And you can forget about working in the salon for a while.

  All of this Rosa recorded obediently in her mind. But where would she get money to live? The loan was running out, and everything had been more expensive than she ever could have known. As she lay in her bedroom, Rosa glanced questioningly at Lula, but Lula just smiled his gray-bearded senior smile and didn’t say anything.

  But then one day, when Rosa was padding around the house in sandals and a red and white striped negligee, occasionally going to stir her palm oil and orange bean stew, which Davi was waiting for, drumming his spoon on the table, a knock came at their door. Three times.

  Rosa turned the heat on the stove down and went to answer. At the door was a sturdy man who was strangely hunched for his size, who filled the entire doorway but still seemed to shrink into his legs. If you had to choose a fruit, you might say his face resembled a p
ear; his jaw was robust and his cheeks round, but his forehead was a significantly less impressive sight. He wore a vermilion BOW TIE. Red, of course, Rosa realized later. The silk tie practically blazed against his creamy white shirt. In the left pocket of his saffron-yellow double-breasted suit was a rust-red silk handkerchief folded in a triangle and wet with sweat, and, it must be said, without that startling, flirtatiously feline BOW TIE and slightly clumsily matched rust-red pocket triangle, he would have looked like a perfectly normal gentleman with an appreciation for old-world style, but that vermilion BOW TIE and the conservative handkerchief that emphasized the jauntiness of the BOW TIE with the saffron-yellow and double-breasted suit coat made for a very eccentric overall impression. Based on his outfit, the large, hunched man looked if not like a cockscomb at least like someone seeking to be peculiar, who was nevertheless strangely embarrassed by his choice of dress, like a woman dressed too boldly for her temperament might regret the fripperies she has on once she’s already on the street and late for a meeting she’s been looking forward to with excessive enthusiasm: she went crazy with a miniskirt (which wouldn’t stay put), fishnet stockings (which would snag), and a crimson frilly shirt that exposes a generous cleavage—but the man standing at the door filling the opening even as he shrank within the frame was an even more pitiable sight, completely lacking the loitering frivolity, the shockingly bold, waxed-mustache flirtatiousness, and the playful ruby-red cufflinks that would have made him what the choice of outfit claimed he was: a nonconformist, a dandy, a man of the world with a wink to match. When you looked at him more closely, no ambiguity remained: this man was at rock bottom. He hadn’t come to sell perfume, skin cream, or fruit slicers. His business was—serious.

  The conversation that the strangely dressed gentleman had with Rosa Imaculada is reproduced below in full:

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: Are you Rosa Imaculada Araújo?

  ROSA IMACULADA: Yes.

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: I am Estêvão Santoro. I received a letter from you three months ago.

  Rosa realizes immediately what letter the man is speaking of.

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: I mean this letter.

  Mr. Santoro produces a wrinkled paper from his pocket and unfolds it for Rosa to see. Rosa wrote the letter on the day she left Ceará Hospital, the fifteenth of January. The hospital promised to deliver the letter to the family of the donor, strictly anonymously: anything else would be bad manners, unethical, and altogether impossible. Rosa signed the letter “Someone who received a new life”, but then—out of some damned vanity? self-importance? childish hope for contact, for understanding, for love?—she crossed out that line and inserted her name:

  Dear Family,

  I want to tell you how thankful I am. I now have your son’s hear t. I don’t know anything about him except that he was eighteen years old. His death must have been a tragedy for you. I mourn that too. I would be dead without your son’s hear t. I weep with emotion and gratitude when I think about this. You are in my hear t even though I can never meet you. God bless you!

  Someone who received a new life

  Rosa Imaculada Araújo, Bahia

  ROSA IMACULADA (embarrassed): Yes. I wrote this letter.

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: I’m happy I found you. (He does not look happy.) The heart donor was my youngest son. May I come in for a moment?

  Davi walks up to his mother, pushes his head through the door opening, and begins to bang on the door jamb with his spoon.

  ROSA IMACULADA: Yes, of course. Please come in! How rude of me to leave you standing there. Come in. (She bustles about, leading her guest to the couch to sit.) Would you like grapefruit, pineapple, or mango juice? Coffee? There’s stew simmering in the pot. Are you hungry . . . ? Oh yes, this is my son, Davi. Say hello to the gentleman, Davi. (She picks the boy up, who begins to wail.) There, there, so grumpy. He’s hungry . . .

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: A glass of grapefruit juice will be fine, thank you. I’m in no hurry, so please take your time feeding your son.

  Grandmother comes down from upstairs. Rosa rushes to the door and whispers so the whole street echoes: “Guess-who’s-sitting-on-mycouch! My-new-heart’s-father!” Grandmother hobbles down with her cane to see. Estêvão Santoro stands up and walks over to greet Grandmother. They shake hands. “God bless you, dear man,” Grandmother says in a hoarse voice overcome with emotion, unable to tear her gaze from the BOW TIE that protrudes from the man’s collar like an overripe rose. “My daughter has been saved thanks to your generosity. God is good, amen.” Estêvão Santoro nods and warmly squeezes the old woman’s hand, and can’t help noticing that her face has the same rough, statuesque quality as her granddaughter’s. Grandmother clumsily retreats into the kitchen, making a hurried I’llfeed-the-boy gesture and pulling the child, who is now bawling a full-on I’ve-been-abandoned howl, along with her. Rosa brings a pitcher of juice and two glasses from the kitchen, closes the door, and sits on an uncomfortable-looking wooden stool a couple of meters from the couch. The boy’s cry carries perfectly through the door.

  ROSA IMACULADA: Tell me. What made you come?

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: I wanted to meet the person in whom a small part of my son still lives. (His voice cracks. A short pause.) Do you know, my son Murilo intended to go to university soon. He wasn’t stupid at all, just a little lost. He was interested in technical things, and I think he could have become an excellent wood-manufacturing engineer. He participated in boxing and swimming and all sorts of young people’s games, and of course women (a snort with a hint of fatherly pride), he also “participated” in women. On the morning of his death, Murilo was just on his way to visit one of his “participants” . . . (long pause) He was all dressed up and kept poking at his hair in front of the mirror, changing how it looked, and nothing seemed to be quite right . . . That made me think it was serious . . . But he wouldn’t even tell me her name . . . He just got irritated when I pressed too hard . . . (pause) And then he went and drove his motorcycle into a bridge girder.

  Rosa only grunts because she is too horrified to scream and, as often happens, immediately realizes that this grunt is nowhere near enough, even realizes that the grunt might be interpreted as a signal of indifference: “What of it. People die. That’s a typical way for a young man to go. Really it was predictable. Is that what you came to tell me, that an idiot with a hard-on screwing around with his motorcycle ran into a concrete pole . . . ?” Rosa coughs and fashions two words appropriate to the situation.

  ROSA IMACULADA: How terrible!

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: He lay in a coma for three days. Then it was over. I had to start organizing the funeral.

  ROSA IMACULADA: Dreadful! (Sighs in shock and reflexively places her hand over her heart.)

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: We left so many things unsaid. Murilo was so quick-tempered. He flew off the handle whenever you asked him something at the wrong moment, if you questioned how he wasted his money, or if you just suggested a discussion about decisions for the future. (Raises his gaze to the ceiling, where a fan with a crooked blade flutters.) I thought that he would calm down as he grew up. That he would find the right woman and so forth . . .

  ROSA IMACULADA: And then when the right woman did come along, his motorcycle went out of control . . .

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: Yes. But really, how can I know she was the love of his life? I don’t actually know anything about my son. He was handsome. Look. (Produces a photograph with bent corners from his breast pocket: a bronzed young man in Honolulu-style shorts smiles next to his motorcycle in a slightly affected contrapposto to ensure that the bulging muscle of his left bicep is visible, so his washboard abs will show, so—and now some painfully pleasurable, irrational feeling of familiarity scrabbles at Rosa in the pit of her stomach—his protruding penis in the leg of his shorts will be obvious; and from somewhere very close, Rosa realizes a moment later, from the night, out of a dream pops an image of a mysterious lover, a dazzlingly beautiful, barely full-grown angel whom Murilo is going on his moto
rcycle to visit . . . And to her shock, Rosa feels how the tiny head of her flower stiffens and sweat forms on her inner thighs . . . but it isn’t from Murilo’s picture . . . It’s caused by Murilo’s girl . . .)

  ROSA IMACULADA (clears throat): Very . . . pleasant-looking. Yes.

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (contentedly notes Rosa’s confusion): Ayayay, women had such a weakness for Murilo! (Thinks of his son’s lifeless body and grows dark again. Looks for a way out of the situation. Finds her face and makes a surprising move.) Excuse me if I ask directly, but do you have mestizo blood?

  ROSA IMACULADA (even more confused by the sudden shift in conversation; becomes alarmed; perhaps he noticed her sudden arousal?): D-d-do I have . . . (straightens up) My grandmother is half apinajé. Do you mean my facial features? (Estêvão Santoro nods in relief.) My grandmother’s face? If only you had met my mother. It was very pronounced in her . . .

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: And your mother . . . ?

  ROSA IMACULADA: She’s dead.

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: My condolences.

  ROSA IMACULADA: I was small when it happened.

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: How sad.

  ROSA IMACULADA: My father left. It broke my mother’s heart.

  ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: You have . . . sort of a hereditary taint . . . ?

  ROSA IMACULADA: I imagine we do.

  A warm, plaintive silence, about five seconds, which is a long pause in a fast-moving conversation, believe it or not. During this silence, Estêvão Santoro finally forgives the woman who has benefited from his son’s death. (Of course—how else?—Murilo’s parents had agreed to the organ donation, rationalizing that this is not a zero sum game—they couldn’t get their son back no matter what they did, so let the heart go to someone who needed it. But feelings are feelings, and beneath all the confusion, Estêvão Santoro also felt a repellent, disgusting anger that he couldn’t dispel with reason and which only disappeared when he thought of little Rosa’s poor dead mother and the orphan girl left to her grandmother’s care: they were both victims: now the situation was finally even.)