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
