Suddenly Rosa squeezes Mr. Santoro’s hands tightly.
ROSA IMACULADA (shouting): A bang!—
Help!
What on . . .
—Startled, Estêvão Santoro instinctively opens his eyes. However, he closes them immediately, reluctantly; he can’t let the connection break. Something is coming. Rosa is obviously finding something!
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (unable to conceal his excitement): Yes! (Lowering his voice) And what is the bang from?
ROSA IMACULADA (cautiously): The downstairs door . . . ?
Estêvão Santoro swallows and clears his throat. He extracts his hands from Rosa’s, wipes the sweat on his trousers, and then reaches for Rosa again.
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: An exhaust pipe. From a motorcycle.
Rosa is untroubled. Door or exhaust pipe, it’s irrelevant. She again squeezes Mr. Santoro’s hands, which are slippery with sweat. She feels as Murilo walks through the door. His walking is noisy, his heels pounding on the floor—he’s been drinking more than just water too. Rosa reels. The bed she’s sitting on begins to sway. Murilo grabs the railing of the winding staircase in the living room and heads upstairs. Murilo opens his mouth . . .
ROSA IMACULADA: Roses . . . Roses, so many roses . . .
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: Where?
ROSA IMACULADA: On the windowsill. In the hall. The curtains are red, scarlet red. An enormous number of white roses are on the windowsill in three different vases.
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (taken aback): My wife loves flowers . . . I buy them for her nearly every day . . . And the curtains really are red—
What did I say! What did I say!
—ROSA IMACULADA (drowsily): Murilo opens his mouth and shouts, “Is anyone home?” He looks for his mother, assuming he’ll find her in the kitchen . . . But your wife isn’t in the kitchen. Murilo walks out onto the terrace . . . and sees you. You’re sitting in a wicker chair with your face toward the evening sun.
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (squeezing Rosa’s hands): I stand up and greet Murilo. “Hello, son. Where have you been?”
ROSA IMACULADA (speech slightly unclear): “I was handling some things.”
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (suddenly irritated): “What things, may I ask?”
This sentence is the beginning of Rosa’s death. Anger, not her own anger but the overflowing anger toward his father that has been building up in Murilo, wells within her after Estêvão Santoro’s annoyed question. The surge of anger is so strong that Polina, Shlomith, and Ulrike also feel it, even though they’re watching the scene from another time, another reality, by means of the fragile energy of thought radiated by the Rosa Imaculada floating in the air concentrating on the BOW TIE. However, that transplanted anger doesn’t take root in them. Rosa shakes off Mr. Santoro’s hands.
ROSA IMACULADA (shouting): “Father, I have my own life! And besides, I need a car. I can’t haul all my stuff around on a motorcycle. And I’m sick of asking people for rides. And you know it. You’re intentionally humiliating me in front of my friends.”
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (barely controlling his rage): “Are we going to start this again? Every goddamn time I see you, you pester me about a car. As if you didn’t remember we have an agreement! You get a car the same day you—”
ROSA IMACULADA: “Father, why are you blackmailing me? Everyone has a car!”
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: “YOU GET A CAR THE DAY YOU REGISTER AT THE UNIVERSITY!”
ROSA IMACULADA (shrinking back on the bed): “I’m never doing that! (Waving her arm) Keep your stupid eucalyptus trees! Aren’t you ever going to listen to me? I’m going to make my own choices!”
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (face red): “Not with my money you aren’t! If you think I’m going to support you while you (his voice turns unctuous) loaf around at your little whore’s house (ends the falsely flattering tone, continues shouting), YOU’RE WRONG! You’re dead wrong!”
ROSA IMACULADA (suddenly calm, speaks with an icy chill): “So keep your money. I don’t want it. I’m sick of arguing. You’ll be dead in five years from a heart attack anyway, unless you start taking it easier. The same thing will happen to you as Maximiliano and Manoel and Fernão. Do you really think I’m going to be a good little boy and get in line for that? What world are you living in?”
Estêvão Santoro’s tolerance is finally shattered. His father and grandfather and great-grandfather, whom his son just so casually tossed aside, are his greatest heroes. Over decades their hard work, risk-taking, and constant effort created the Santoro fortune that this ungrateful brat now enjoys—and how! Before it was different. There was respect for previous generations, there was willpower as strong as iron. And above all, there were goals. The story of their family was practically textbook for entrepreneurship. Maximiliano brought massive quantities of raw rubber to the market, which vulcanization turned into gaskets for use between moving parts, like pistons and cylinders. When rubber production moved to Asia, his son, Manoel, bought a eucalyptus plantation and started producing charcoal. His grandson, Fernão, expanded the tree farms, made a foray into pulp production, got spanked, and returned to charcoal. And now the great-grandson, Estêvão himself, patron of the Rio Negro Bridge
