Winning the Game and Other Stories

passion

ONCE, I WAS IN LOVE WITH A GIRL and to prove to her the magnitude of my feeling cut off the little finger of my right hand. They say passion is a pathological condition, a sickness that luckily is transitory.

Though I was never in love with Nelly, I married her. I’m a writer, and all writers (with notorious exceptions) are poor devils. Nelly had money, inherited from her father, in addition to making quite a lot in her profession as a lawyer specializing in indemnities.

I have to tell the truth. I was a failure as a writer. Not even that, I wasn’t even a failure, which would be something, I was a writer who’d never managed to get published. I sent my originals to countless publishers and every one, without exception, was returned, with those routine hypocritical explanations. I spoke with Nelly to see if she could finance the publication of one of my books, just one, with those publishing houses that do that, but she asked me if I had no shame and said she’d have no part of something as unworthy as that.

Nelly is very jealous and has hired a team of private detectives who watch me day and night. You know how I met Michele, the passion of my life? At the office of Dr. Amancio, a surgeon friend of mine. He let me use one of the rooms and I made love to Michele on one of the hospital beds. Actually, it was Amancio who found the solution to my problem, about which I’ll have more to say later.

For Michele I’d cut off any finger, my whole hand, anything but my dick. I like making love to Michele. Making love with passion demands a rite, a protocol, pomp, solemnity. But for that, the body of the woman you’re going to make love to needs to be very beautiful, perfect, like Michele’s. Or that you find to be perfect, which amounts to the same thing. Pirandello is right: if it seems that way to you, it is. Here’s the rite, which encompasses the five senses: the woman lies down in bed, completely nude, and you contemplate her body, from head to toe, front and back. You look at every detail, the neck, the shoulder blades, the navel, the knee, the toes, the mouth, the eyes, open so you can distinguish the color, and closed, so you can see the lash and the dark circles, every woman has them, some more pronounced, others more subtle. Next you lightly brush the belly and the breasts, and the inside of the thighs. The skin has nerve endings and corpuscles, the so-called tactile receptors, which make the body sensitive to the caress. Next you bring your nose close to her body and smell the aroma of each part, the hair, the underarms, the breasts, the feet, the vagina, the back, the buttocks. Then, following the ritual, you taste the woman by lightly biting and running your tongue over her entire body, lips, tongue, breasts, again the underarms, the belly, navel, legs, not forgetting the part behind the knees, and also the feet and finally the vagina—in the vulva, where the tongue must explore all the recesses, for the tastes of the vagina are countless and varied in each fragment, and at certain moments you should shape your tongue into a cone and stick it as far as possible into that voluptuously flavorful fissure. Afterward, the buttocks and anus. The tongue must roam and discover the pleasures contained in that magic orifice of extremely high sensitivity that can afford a sublime delight.

Only after these prolegomena should we introduce the penis into the dazzling rift, which will be balsamically aromatic, prepared to receive it.

How to do that with Nelly? She has an ugly body, drooping breasts, flaccid ass and belly. And when I suggested that she consult a plastic surgeon, she asked bitingly, “You think I’m some kind of Botoxed social butterfly? I’m a professional, a famous lawyer, respected, who makes a living by working.” Implicit in the way she said this was that I was a bum, a make-believe writer, who didn’t work.

I had a long talk with my friend Amancio. “I don’t know what to do about my life,” I told him. “I’m in love with Michele, and my wife is suffocating me, humiliating me, making me unhappy.”

Amancio was silent for some time. Then he said he had the answer to my problem. “I know you want to give Michele an apartment, don’t you?”

“Yes, I’d like to satisfy her fondest dream, which is to have a penthouse apartment in Leblon. But I don’t even have the money to buy a shack in a shantytown.”

“I’ve got the solution to your problem.”

Amancio’s solution horrified me.

“I can’t do that, Amancio, I don’t have the courage.”

“Think, think about it.”

“I would never do something like that.”

But that night, Nelly told me she was tired of living with a parasite and was going to find me a job in the bureaucracy that I couldn’t refuse.

“Go on, say yes. I’m ordering it, I’ve already decided.”

“All right, all right, Nelly, I’ll go by the office tomorrow.”

But I wasn’t about to obey Nelly’s intolerable ukase. Instead, I went to Amancio’s office.

“I’m in,” I said.

“Everything’s ready,” Amancio said.

He gave me a hypodermic needle and told me to scrape it on Nelly’s skin as she slept; one scratch would be enough. The needle was infected with tetanus. I remembered someone saying that a good way of getting rid of a person was by infecting them with tetanus, but I couldn’t recall who had said it.

I remained awake, holding the needle, without the courage to act. Then Nelly started snoring, and I believe that was what led me to do what Amancio recommended.

The next morning Nelly said she had a scratch on her leg, and I suggested she put a Band-Aid on it. Band-Aids don’t do a goddamn bit of good, Amancio had told me. “Shut off the water so Nelly doesn’t take a bath; if she washes the wound with soap and water, everything’s ruined; soap and water kill any type of infection.”

Nelly went to her office without taking a bath, with the Band-Aid on her leg. I stayed at home, suffering, judging myself a damnable murderer, a reprobate of the worst kind. I called Amancio’s office.

“Take it easy, take it easy. Stop by here and we’ll talk,” he said.

“You two got married under community property,” Amancio said. “When Nelly dies you’ll get everything, you’ll be able to write in peace, and if necessary, pay for publishing your book. Several writers who later became famous and important paid for the first printing of their books. Everybody knows that.”

Amancio explained that the incubation period of tetanus could vary from three to twenty-one days; the further away from the nervous system the wound, the longer the incubation period, and the longer that incubation period, the greater the probability of death, which is why he ordered me to make the scratch in the leg.

“God forgive me,” I said.

“What’s done is done,” said Amancio.

When you want time to go by quickly, it goes by very slowly. After ten days, nothing happened. But on the thirteenth day, Nelly began to experience contractions in her jaw muscles. I called Amancio.

“Ah, that’s good,” he said, “it’s the first sign of tetanus, what’s called trismus. Nelly’s going to be unable to open her mouth. Call me to examine her.”

“Nelly, my love, I’ve called Dr. Amancio; he’s coming here to examine you.”

Amancio examined Nelly at length.

“It’s nothing,” Amancio said, “just nervous tension. You must be having some problem at work. I’m going to give you a tranquilizer, an injection.”

He applied an injection in Nelly’s vein.

“Wonderful,” Amancio said. “Just look at her face.”

I looked. Nelly was laughing.

“She’s laughing,” I said.

“Exactly. It’s called risus sardonicus, a spasm of the muscles surrounding the mouth. Wonderful. Now we’ll wait for diaphoresis. She’s going to sweat, sweat, sweat, her temperature will rise, she’s going to suffer tachycardia and die of asphyxia caused by spasms of the diaphragm.” (I forgot to mention that Amancio abused the word wonderful—the food was wonderful, the film was wonderful, the shoes were wonderful, and so on.)

Amancio himself wrote the death certificate: general failure of multiple organs, which is what doctors put on the death certificate when they’re unsure of the causa mortis. Nelly had no other relatives, and since visits were forbidden, no one saw the risus sardonicus stamped on her face while she lay dying in bed, but I confess that I always remembered her Joker’s physiognomy and even had nightmares of Nelly sitting at the dinner table looking at me with a scornful or disdainful smile as I ate a plate of onions, the food I hate most.

Nelly owned countless properties and a variety of investments. I took part of the money I got and bought a two-story penthouse at the beach in Michele’s name. That was her dream, a penthouse on the oceanfront in Leblon. (In reality, I also had to spend a reasonably large amount to remodel the penthouse. The apartment was highly livable, but women are crazy about remodeling, and it was done: a new kitchen, two new baths, some walls torn down, a new sauna, a different floor—all in all, a new apartment. Plus the furniture … I spent a lot of money.)

“Look,” she told me when the work was finished, “you go on living in your house, and I’ll live in mine. The thing that kills love is two people living together, rubbing against each other all day. I know over a thousand cases. Another thing, nobody can show up at the other’s house without calling ahead.”

She was right. Since there was no friction, our relationship continued as perfect as before. Maybe it got even better, because we fucked in more comfort.

Amancio was constantly demanding. “You owe me,” he would say. Amancio might be a good tetanus contaminator, but it seems as a doctor he was nothing special. He had few patients and spent much of his time in nightclubs and houses of ill repute; as he himself confessed, he was fond of fucking whores.

“You don’t need to use a rubber if you fuck a whore. You need to use a rubber if you fuck a married woman, ’cause they catch diseases from their husbands, who’re bisexual,” he said.

Knowing his proclivities, I wasn’t concerned when he and Michele would go to art exhibitions together, which they did often.

I gave him a large amount of money and also a full power of attorney to buy, sell, subrogate, everything.

One day Amancio said he needed my help. He had a place in the mountains, a little past Teresopolis, and wanted to invite an acquaintance of his to spend a few days there, but in reality he wanted to imprison him in the cellar.

“What then?” I asked.

“After a few days I’ll let him go. It’s just to scare him. He’s a nobody.”

“What if he yells for help?”

“He can yell as much as he wants, no one’s going to hear. I don’t have a caretaker, and I lock the place up tighter than a drum. Take it easy.”

“Shit, you’re going to kill the guy?”

“I don’t know,” he said, “he’s a son of a bitch. And he’s screwing up my life. He doesn’t let me be with the woman I’m in love with.”

“I didn’t know you were in love too. Is she a whore?”

“No, she’s not a whore.”

The place in the mountains was in an isolated location. The house was old, made of stone, very pretty.

“What about the guy?” I asked.

“He’ll be here soon,” Amancio answered. “Come on, I’ll show you the cellar.”

A trapdoor was opened in one of the rooms, and Amancio pointed to the opening.

“See? We go down that wooden ladder and then pull the ladder up, leaving the son of a bitch to rot in there. Go on down to see.”

The ladder had countless steps. The cellar was very dark. When I got to the final step, I said, “Shit, this place is really deep.”

“There’s a lantern and kerosene there. Please light the lantern.”

Using my lighter, I illuminated the cellar. I found the lantern on a small table beside a bed with a straw mattress.

“It’s a cubicle,” I shouted.

At that moment, I saw the ladder being raised.

“Our visitor has arrived, I’ll be right back,” said Amancio.

After a time, I heard a female voice.

“Hello, Pedro.”

“Michele?”

“In the flesh,” she replied, her face appearing at the trapdoor.

“What are you doing here?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

I was in a state of shock, for I suddenly understood everything. The nobody that Amancio wanted to starve to death was me. I was fucked. I knew neither he nor Michele was joking. Now I understood those art exhibitions the two of them went to together, several times a week. And once they went to Paris to see an exhibition, and I thought nothing of it, they were my best friend and the woman who claimed to be madly in love with me. I was a naïve fool. The woman Amancio was in love with was Michele.

“What are you doing here, Michele?” I repeated.

“I came to help Amancio bury you. Bye-bye, sweetheart.”

Before the trapdoor could be closed, I shouted, “Michele, Michele, please, call Amancio, call Amancio.”

Amancio appeared at the trapdoor opening.

“What do you want?”

“Amancio, you’re my best friend. Get me a thick notebook, several pens, and a little more kerosene. Before I starve to death, I want to write a novel. I have the feeling it’ll be my masterpiece.”

“I’ll get it for you,” I heard him say.

It took him some time to return. I thought about my power of attorney with subrogation rights. Then I remember who it was that once told me that causing a tetanus infection was a good way to get rid of any enemy. Michele.

Later, the trapdoor opened and several pens and a thick notebook were dropped down. And also several cans of food and drinks. I saw Amancio’s face in the trapdoor opening.

“Amancio, did you subrogate to Michele the power of attorney I gave you?”

“Yes, why—?”

He didn’t finish the sentence. I heard a shot and the thud of a body falling to the floor. Michele was a genius, an evil genius. She slammed the trapdoor shut.

Was Amancio lucky enough to have a quick, maybe painless death, or was Michele going to leave him bleeding like a pig? But there’s nothing worse than starving to death, I thought. Those cans of food wouldn’t last long. I had to find a way less slow and painful to dispatch myself. Using the lantern, I looked around the cellar for something sharp to cut my wrists. I didn’t find anything. Perhaps I could tear open my veins with my teeth. It wouldn’t be easy to do. But it didn’t have to be that day. Another hypothesis was to set fire to the straw mattress and die of asphyxiation. But it didn’t have to be that day.

I could take advantage of the silence, the solitude, to write. That was it: leave a message for posterity, a masterpiece that would surely be found one day beside my skull, which would generate great publicity for my book.

I sat down on the bed, placed the table in front of me, picked up one of the pens, opened the notebook, and began to write furiously.

Publishers would fight like hyenas over the right to publish my book.