I delayed getting up, uncertain of what people outside might be heading to do. Was I a prisoner? I wasn’t shackled. No iron bars on the window by where Renato slept. And the rickety wooden door wouldn’t stop anyone from escaping. But my life was in jeopardy, it would be wise to appear unconscious.
The door got flew open. I jerked over the bed, startled. A man entered the clinic, followed by a woman. The woman was the one I had seen taking care of Renato’s shoulder. The man coming with her I had never seen before.
He had a rifle strapped to his torso, a radio hanging on his neck, and a pistol on his hip.
I pretended to be asleep. My heart pounded and my breath quickened.
The man and the woman spoke to each other under the door frame. It wasn’t long before their conversation escalated: the woman sounding soft—the man lashing at her with harsh words.
I narrowly opened my eyelids to the faintest of lights. Through the corner of my eye, I saw the man pointing at Renato. The woman gestured with her hands, pleading him to stop.
The woman grabbed him by the arm, spoke softly, and as though touched by God, the man conceded and let the woman walk him out of the room. I gasped when the door shut, breathed in, and only then noticed how much I held back my breath. I was sweating even more, my skin sticky.
I had to get out of there.
I felt an urge to weep when a picture of my home in Atlanta dawned on me. The comfort of my bed, the cleanness of my bathroom, the scent of my clothes.
When their voices and steps faded, lost in the streets and alleys of Gloria Santa, I pushed myself up and dragged my body across the room toward Renato.
I tried to walk, but I staggered, engulfed by darkness. When bright specks flickered on the edges of my vision, I decided to crawl on all fours for safety.
Renato was laying there shirtless. His torso wrapped in gauze, blemishes around his shoulder that I took as being blood. His bed was rickety like mine, wood slats and a paper-thin mattress. The night was dark, but under the window next to where Renato slept, dim shafts of light entered the room making a small contrast of colors.
On his face, I noticed peace. He breathed heavily in a deep slumber, regardless of the discomfort of his wound.
I tapped his forehead to wake him up, but my fingers were running up and down over his scalp. The first time I had ever felt the softness of his hair. Even sleeping, Renato looked beautiful, and for a while I lost myself thinking about his mouth, and then his blood. We could die there.
Renato tilted his head under my caresses and said, “Emily, is that you?”
“Yes,” I said, swallowing hard. “How are you feeling?”
“Wretched,” he replied with a painful smirk.
“What happened to us?” My mind already back to the matter that had made me crawl over to his bed.
Renato’s eyes gleamed amid the darkness of the room when he looked at me.
“I haven’t been able to ask many questions,” he stammered, “but according to Fátima, the woman taking care of us, I have a bullet lodged in my shoulder and you’ve been bashed on the head.”
“God, we need to take you to a hospital,” I said, looking him over. A gunshot seemed to be an immediate threat to life. “Why are they keeping you here?”
Renato smirked again, and moaned with pain.
“Anyone who arrives at Rio’s hospitals with gunshot wounds is immediately reported to the police either as being a victim or a hitman. I couldn’t allow officers Pinto and Rôla to know my location. That would mean our end.”
“But you need professional treatment. You need a doctor to treat your wounds.”
“I’ve been through worse, Emily. Don’t worry about me. Besides, according to Fátima, you’ve been hit by quite heavy a man. She thought you were dead when they brought you here.”
“Have I?” I replied.
With my legs crossed on the floor, I felt the bandages on my neck. Whatever had hit me, had been heavy and hard, given the amount of cloth used to dress the wound, and the throbbing of what seemed to be a sutured cut beneath it.
Renato nodded.
“She told me that a drug soldier, perched on a rooftop above us, was shot dead by a police sniper. ‘His body fell squarely onto your head, knocking you out. There was so much blood around you that Fátima had a hard time figuring out who had the badder wound.’”
A man falling on me from a rooftop would explain both the pain I had been enduring and that disgusting feeling of having twisted joints inside.
“We gotta do something,” I said. “We can’t stay here forever.” I remembered the anger carried by the man that, not long ago, had been to the clinic, but I thought it would be best not to mention it right away.
“You’re right. But we need a bit more time. I need to become stronger, I can´t walk yet.”
Renato averted his eyes, as though he had made a huge effort to utter his words. And to me, absorbing them was equally hard. I would fight my way out, even ragged. But I did not want to leave him behind. Renato was responsible for driving me into the worst—and hottest—days of my life, but now, inside that dreary clinic somewhere in the labyrinth of Gloria Santa slum he was also the source of warmth and reassurance.
“How long before you can walk?” I said. A torrent of images rushed through my mind, unfriendly
