The Body Snatcher Read online

  Born in São Paulo, Patrícia Melo has published eight novels including The Killer, which won the Deux Ocenas prize, and Inferno, winner of the Jabuti Prize. More recently Black Waltz and Lost World were both longlisted for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Melo’s plays include A ordem do mundo (The Order of the World) and Duas mulheres e um cadáver (Two Women and a Cadaver). She lives in Brazil and Switzerland.

  BITTER LEMON PRESS

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2015 by Bitter Lemon Press, 47 Wilmington Square, London WC1X 2ET

  www.bitterlemonpress.com

  First published in Portuguese as Ladrão de cadáveres by Editora Rocco Ltda, Rio de Janeiro, 2010

  © Patrícia Melo 2010

  English translation © Clifford E. Landers 2015

  Published by arrangement with Literarische Agentur Dr. Ray-Güde Mertin Inh. Nicole Witt e. K., Frankfurt am Main, Germany

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher

  The moral rights of the author and the translator have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All the characters and events described in this novel are imaginary and any similarity with real people or events is purely coincidental.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  eBook ISBN 978-1-908524-546

  Typeset by Tetragon, London

  Printed and bound by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire

  Bitter Lemon Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Arts Council of England

  This work is published with the support of the Ministry of Culture of Brazil/ Fundação Biblioteca Nacional. Obra publicada com o apoio do Ministério da Cultura do Brasil / Fundação Biblioteca Nacional.

  For Pedro Henrique

  Cadavers cannot bear to be nomads.

  TOMÁS ELOY MARTÍNEZ

  Contents

  Part I: The Cadaver

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part II: The Thief

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Part I

  THE CADAVER

  1

  We flounder in the heat.

  I hear steps nearby on the neighboring terrace but don’t have the energy to shout.

  They whisper, trip, and break something. Laugh.

  Downstairs, the bicycle shop is closed. The kids, in bands, amuse themselves by spying on the neighbors in the area. They hang from trees, climb on roofs, squeeze through gaps. In the distance I hear the sound of shopping carts ripping up the asphalt. They screech.

  Those goddamn bogus Indians, says Sulamita, getting up nude and going into the bathroom.

  Down below, the old woman yells. The Indian woman. Just yesterday she told me she knows how to braid acuri palm straw.

  Sulamita gets irritated when she sleeps with me. She says I have to look for a job, get away from here, find another area to live. That shitty bunch of Indians, she says.

  I like the place. And I like Corumbá. And I’ve gotten used to the children, who often take advantage of my absence to go through my things. I also like the old Indian woman and think of her when I go fishing.

  I hear Sulamita filling a bucket of water in the bathroom. Don’t do it, I say, to no avail. On tiptoe, she approaches the door and catches the children by surprise with their backs turned, perched on the window ledge.

  I hear the kids running, shouting and laughing, after the soaking they got.

  Only then do I open my eyes.

  It’s Sunday.

  2

  The reporter says: thirty-three thousand young people will be murdered in the next four years. In my mind I see a policeman opening fire on them. The blacks. Shot from behind, in my imagination. The poor. I see brain matter clinging to the wall where the massacre takes place. And the edges of the wounds. The reporter says: the dead, according to statistics, will be black and brown. Someone will have to hose down the sidewalks, I think.

  I like to get in my clunky red van, turn on the radio, and in the comfort of the same-old, same-old, after a cold shower and some strong coffee, listen to the announcer talk about the drop in the stock market somewhere in the world, massacres, earthquakes, Taliban attacks, kidnappings, floods, homicides, pandemics, rapes, and mile-long traffic jams. It calms me down. It’s part of my recovery to think like that. I hear all of it with the good sensation that I’m not the target of anything, I’m outside the statistics, I’m not rich, I’m not black, or Muslim, that’s what I think, I’m safe, protected in my van as I proceed toward the town of Remédios and turn onto the Old Highway, always with the windows open for the smell of the woods to invade my nostrils.

  Sometimes Sulamita sleeps at home, and on those days I run my private antivirus listening to the stories about what goes on at the police precinct where she’s an administrative assistant. Drug busts, arrest warrants, raids, corruption, and fraud. People fuck themselves up royally, that’s the truth. Today, while we were eating freshly baked bread, she told me about the woman who showed up at the precinct with a knife sticking out of her ear.

  That’s how I began that Sunday. So far no problems, I told myself. At least I don’t have a knife in my ear. We’re doing well. Control, over.

  I parked on the first bridge, got out and went down to the mouth of the canal and stayed there, listening to the croaking of the frogs and thinking about where I would go fishing.

  I remembered the day Sulamita and I rode our bicycles to the grotto. A stupid idea, Sulamita said. The road was swamped from the rains, the mud was up to our ankles. Sulamita complained as she pushed her bike during the trip. Later, we bathed in the icy waters of the grotto.

  From the bridge almost no animals were visible, not even cavies or alligators, because of the ranches in the vicinity. A few toucans and magpies were flying over the low vegetation in search of food in the pools of water reflecting the sunlight.

  It was so hot that the trucks transporting cattle in the region weren’t risking it. Sweat was pouring down my face.

  I went back to the van and plunged into the woods, among the caranda palms. I continued as far as the trail permitted, taking the whole fishing caboodle – reel, pole, and hooks – along with a cooler full of beer, and some peanut candy.

  After leaving the van parked under a tree, I walked to the Paraguay River, carrying my fishing materials and the net. I don’t know how far I walked. My head was throbbing under the sun. On the way, I stopped at the mouth of the grotto, the same one I visited with Sulamita. Exhausted, I took off my clothes and for a long time floated, savoring the coolness on my body, until my forehead stopped throbbing.

 
Feeling better, I followed the trail to the river.

  It was January, when the fish come up in schools to lay their eggs in the headwaters of the river. During that time, fishing is prohibited: you can’t use cast nets, seines, or stake nets. The advantage was that I had the place all to myself.

  I sat down, opened a beer. It was one of those calm, bright Sundays when your thoughts wander without destination or worry.

  I spent the afternoon like that, a little groggy from the beer, watching the river flow. A warm breeze blew over my body.

  I caught all the fish it was possible to carry on the trek back to the van. Less than ten kilos: two pacu, a surubí, and three piavuçus.

  Later I stretched out in the shade, ate a bit of the candy, and dozed off, waiting for the temperature to drop for the walk back. I don’t know how long I slept. I dreamed that I had to survey phone lines and coordinate the operators through the radio hookup, over, which was making a horrible squeal. All of that had been a long time ago, and yet the radio was still in my nightmares.

  I woke up with my heart racing, hearing the sound of an engine. I looked toward the sky and saw the airplane flying low, thinking it was doing aerial photography.

  I don’t really know how it all happened. Suddenly, an explosion, and the plane plunged like a kingfisher into the Paraguay.

  3

  The nose of the single-engine plane was underwater in the narrowest and most irregular part of the Paraguay, an unnavigable shallow stretch where one of the wings had buried itself. Dark smoke was coming from the engine.

  I removed my pants and sneakers and swam to the aircraft. The water level was a little above my waist. As soon as I climbed onto the fuselage I spotted the pilot, a large guy, young, with a bony face. Blood was gushing from the wound to his forehead.

  I forced open the right-hand door, partially out of the water, and went inside. I told the pilot not to worry, I’d take him to my van and we’d find help using my cell phone. You’re very lucky, I said while I undid his safety belt, very, very lucky, dropping out of the sky and still being alive.

  That was the moment when he bought it, just as I was saying he was a fortunate guy. First he emitted a muffled sigh, almost a moan. I checked his pulse. Nothing.

  A feeling of terror swept over me.

  Water was starting to rise into the plane. I opened the right-hand door to keep us from being dragged away, uncertain if my reasoning was correct.

  Panting, swallowing water, I swam back to the riverbank, now fearing the piranhas. I tried to turn on the cell phone in my pants pocket, but couldn’t get a signal.

  I returned to the plane, went into the cabin and sat down in the copilot’s seat. I stayed there for some minutes hearing the water beat against the fuselage, pondering what to do. Maybe the best thing would be to take the youth away from the river. Still, there wasn’t the slightest chance that I could carry him to the van. He was heavier than me and probably weighed eighty kilos. I could have dragged him, but the idea of dragging a corpse bothered me.

  It also occurred to me that it would make no difference if I left him there for the rescue team.

  From the road I could call the police. They’d arrive in less than three hours.

  I checked the young man’s pulse. That was when I noticed the leather backpack hanging by a strap behind the seat.

  Inside I found an unmistakable package, one of those you see on television in stories about drug busts. A compact mass, white and crumbly, wrapped in heavy plastic and sealed with adhesive tape. I made a small hole in the wrapping and tested the powder by rubbing it on my gums. I was no expert in the subject, but I wasn’t a novice either. Even my tongue went numb. My throat too.

  I sat there, thinking about the police station I’d have to pass on the way to Corumbá. The thought of a pile of money made me take less than a minute to decide.

  I don’t know who said that a man by himself isn’t honest for long, but it’s the gospel truth.

  Driven by the same impulse, I also took the pilot’s wristwatch, and got the hell out of there.

  4

  A year earlier I was telemarketing manager in a boiler room in São Paulo, responsible for the sale of exercise equipment, the kind that you fold up, put under the bed, and never use again. I had sold worse things, like credit cards, water filters, and weight-loss girdles. I was living at my limit, bloated with coffee, running back and forth in the aisles like a frightened rabbit, preparing reports and coordinating sales teams by radio, always with the feeling that I wouldn’t be able to deliver the goods.

  Part of my job description was to teach new operators to use PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and Outlook, a long and demanding training process that invariably served to trigger my migraine attacks. I had just finished instructing a very young and inexperienced employee, and on her very first day at the phone desk, in the morning, when I went to monitor her initial calls, I saw that she was having trouble pronouncing the words. And this after going through the ordeal of training. What’s that in your mouth? I asked.

  And then she showed me the piercing she’d put in the tip of her tongue the day before.

  What killed me was her expression. She smiled, ill at ease, as if she’d done something naughty. Or as if it was possible to work like that, lisping, spitting the words at people who don’t want to talk to us, who hang up in our faces when they realize it’s about sales. You’re selling something? So long, they say. I’m not interested. I don’t want to buy anything. And they slam the phone down in our faces. And her, my employee, with a stud in her tongue.

  How are you going to communicate with our customers? I asked.

  She smiled, embarrassed, tossing her head back.

  All I remember is a wave of hatred rising in my body and the slap I gave her.

  Everyone believed I was a tense kind of guy but under control. I thought so myself.

  The first thing that occurred to me at that moment was that we never understand how a responsible, hard-working citizen pulls a gun and kills a driver in a traffic argument. Actually, it’s very simple. It happens in the same way that I struck my employee. The gun is there, in the glove box. Suddenly some young guy cuts you off at an intersection, you jump out of the car and put a bullet in his forehead. It’s that simple.

  I immediately took the girl to my office. She was frightened, me even more so. Drink some water, I said, sit here, use this handkerchief. I apologized in every way possible. But I wasn’t able to forgive myself, much less understand how I’d been capable of acting like that with the girl. She remained quiet, her eyes on the floor. Like a dog that’s been swatted. She had just the one torn suit, which she had shown up wearing ever since the first day of training. A clean and threadbare girl. Pale. She looked like a bottle of water. Empty. You’ve seen plenty of her type around, very common. With a cheap purse, waiting at the bus stop, pushing buttons in elevators, selling tickets at the movies. That day, she was trying not to burst into convulsive sobs in front of me. Can I go to the bathroom? she asked. The two of us there, facing each other, and I didn’t know what to do. Forgive me, I said. A thousand pardons. I offered my bathroom, managers have that privilege, but she preferred to use the employees’. She returned five minutes later, without the piercing, no makeup, and asked permission to go back to her desk.

  The next few days were terrible. It was as if the two of us had committed some crime. The atmosphere between us was so heavy that she could barely manage to say good morning to me. I even avoided going by her desk out of remorse and embarrassment. I waited for her to denounce me. In bed at night, I couldn’t sleep, thinking about the possibility. But she didn’t inform on me.

  That lasted a week. On the eighth day, the girl didn’t show up. Seeing her chair empty, I had a bad premonition. Soon afterward, someone from her family called and we learned she had thrown herself from the tenth floor.

  At the funeral, from a distance I saw her husband with spiked hair and an exotic appearance, with rings in his ear and nose,
their two-year-old daughter in his arms.

  It wasn’t because of me, I know. She already had her eye on the abyss. I merely provided the impulse for her to jump.

  Just who was that girl? my boss asked when he returned from a trip and heard the news. Days later, the story of the slap was known by all the salespeople, who refused to listen to my orders or talk to me. The news spread like a virus throughout the building and beyond. Workers on other floors, for other firms, turned away in the elevator or in the cafeteria where I had lunch every day. And they whispered when I passed by. It was because of him, they said. The slap. I became a kind of celebrity. The guy who slapped. I was the plague, the devil. Someone wrote on the bulletin board: “Out, heartless monster!”

  I have no choice, the general manager said when he fired me.

  I quickly went into a tailspin. I couldn’t get out of bed and was taking so many sleeping pills that I was like a machine that they turned on and off.

  You look awful, my cousin Carlão said when, by chance, he visited me in São Paulo. And by chance he invited me to spend some time with him.

  That was how I moved to Corumbá. By chance.

  5

  One point one kilos, according to the bathroom scale. They say in the States it would be worth twice as much, three times as much in Europe, but I had no plans to take it further. Or the courage. Actually, I didn’t give a shit about money. I just wanted enough to not have to work for some time longer.

  I weighed the drugs twice more to make sure of the amount.

  I returned everything to the backpack, climbed on a chair, opened the cover that allows access to the crawl space, and placed the pack behind the water tank.

  My room is on the outskirts of Corumbá and belongs to the son of the chief of the Guató tribe, who neither speaks Guató nor knows how to canoe.

  The space is larger than my previous address, a hovel looking out on Highway 26A, where there was nothing but toads and scrub. It was hard for me to get used to that place, with flies buzzing around, mud, and backlands people with nothing to offer except brotherhood. I felt empty there, at night with my eyes closed, I couldn’t forget the noise in São Paulo or my office on Avenida São Luiz with its peeling walls lit by the neon sign of the fitness center across from my window.