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 motorcycle 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.)
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: Now tell me your story.
ROSA IMACULADA (delighted by the request): Do you know that the most horrible and most beautiful things in my life happened at the same time! I became pregnant with Davi and then came this heart trouble. My health collapsed. At first I thought it was (a terrible amount of gentleness in her voice) the flipping fetus that was sucking the strength from me, my growing belly. Davi was enormous. But it only got worse after the birth. And then suddenly everything was in a shambles. The doctor said I would die if I didn’t get a new heart. Dear God, what a diagnosis! I had to move to Fortaleza to wait for the new heart. The waiting lasted and lasted and las— (interrupts sentence, realizing that it is utterly inappropriate to complain about this in front of Estêvão Santoro), well, yes, I mean, my son and Grandma were with me . . . I’m sure you can imagine how many times we all almost went crazy there . . . Our friend’s wife, who we were living with, was so kind and so flexible . . . Davi would cry and this one (points at herself) didn’t have the energy even to hold him properly . . . Grandma would get tired too, and our friend’s wife would have to help with child care . . . (shakes head) and this one couldn’t even promise that she would survive . . . that the whole circus was worth the trouble . . . I might just slip away despite it all . . . just die . . . in the middle of everything . . .
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO (in a determined but not at all bitter tone): And then Murilo died.
ROSA IMACULADA: Yes. Your son died, and now I’m here.
ESTÊVÃO SANTORO: How do you feel?
ROSA IMACULADA (even more cheered by this question about her well-being): Much better, thank you! But do you know, my immune system is weak, the doctors say. I can’t live a normal life right now. I have to be very, very careful all the time. I still can’t even go back to work at the beauty salon . . . The customers can have all kinds of germs, and I have to protect myself . . . But the doctor promised that if I survive
