There were drips of blood scattered over the freezer, next to the corner she had crushed against. Blood streams also flowed sideways from the nape of her neck into her shirt, which created a crimson stain above and along her right shoulder against the floor.
I was certain Fátima had died in the fall. I avoided taking any additional glimpses of her head. After rolling her body to the side, her face had been turned down, nose against the cement floor. From my position, beside her, I could see her eyelids apart from each other.
But then she blinked.
I stared at her. As I did so, I remembered the bandages those hands had offered to me and Renato, the tropical herb teas she had prepared to spruce up our recovery, and the gentle touches on my skin. Seeing her immobilized shifted my perception about her. I got attacked by a sense of pity, even shame, for having clawed at her body and fought against her. Fátima’s life was worth more than that. No one deserved so harsh a sentence.
Yet, I didn’t ask to be dragged into this situation. It was my life at stake, and I had to protect myself. I needed her fingerprint to unlock the phone and call for help.
I raised my hand to turn her around, tugged on her arm, and halted. Would I be brave enough to stare at her eyes, still alive, only to furtively make use of her idle hand, walk away, and leave her behind, alone, by herself?
I faced her, saw the blood on her neck, her eyelids flickering in profile. From the water puddle that had formed on the ground beneath her face, small ripples surged from her nose. She was breathing, and close to drowning in a thin layer of liquid.
I rolled her over, her back against the floor. Fátima, paralyzed, had the gaped eyes of someone in terror, the breathing of someone in need.
I grabbed her thumb, she didn’t resist. At that point I knew that, on her fall, some major nerve had been damaged in her neck. Perhaps it was only temporary. Yes, nothing worse would happen to her. I would go back to Atlanta, go back to my good life, and she would return to treating people in Rio.
Her left hand thumb didn’t unlock the phone. I reached over and picked up the other hand. Fátima’s eyes swept the ceiling, side to side, as I used her body. I was just borrowing it for a while.
The screen flashed, the case trembled, and her phone finally unlocked. Application icons I could read. Fátima moaned as I started typing in a message to my boss, after logging in to my email account.
“I’m sorry, Fátima,” I said. Her eyes scurried down to her lower eyelids, shrinking pupils staring at me.
I finished typing the email, told Joanne I was in Gloria Santa, that I had seen my face on TV, and the story of the scheme the police and drug dealers tried to set up. Then I hit “send.”
“I didn’t mean you any harm. I only need to get out of this nightmare. I’m sorry, Fátima.”
Besides the email to my boss, I had also another plan in mind. I’d call the US Embassy in Rio and provide them with all information they might need to come and fetch me. But first I needed to get out of here. I’d make the call while trudging down the steps and alleyways of Gloria Santa, draped in the white gown, bare feet and starving. Time was against me.
I got up, staggering. A broom, propped against a nearby wall, became my walking stick. My knee ached, my forearm failed to deliver any trustful grasp. I went across the room. Limping, heading for sunlight. Back to the alleyways. Away from Fátima’s energic, accusatory eyes, which contrasted deeply to her idle body.
Barkley was still there. The dog had huddled himself in a corner of the building, tail between his legs. He was much more sensible, and much more acquainted to violence than I was. He had eyes scared of what I had done, ears folded down, and at that moment I knew he wouldn’t be tagging along with me.
But the strongest image in the room, the one that would cling to my mind forever, was that of the paralyzed woman sprawled on the ground.
I just opened the door and walked outside.
Chapter 30
There were just too many things in my head.
As I moved out of the building where Fátima had been left inside, an elderly man filled his lungs up with the smoke of a smoldering pipe. He sat on a bench in front of a ragged house, its door made from uneven wooden slabs, ground littered with paper and plastic residue. He had foggy, experienced eyes that delivered complimentary messages to me: he not only knew who I was, but he also knew what I had done.
I walked past him, limping on the broom, with the added burden of his accusatory eyes. This alleyway was narrow, piled up with unfinished walls, locked doors and shut windows. It winded down the hillside, with the eventual sets of stairs etched to it.
I was trailing what seemed to be an important artery inside the slum. Before long, I got out of the old man’s sight as a soft bend on the path offered me shelter. I had a sense that the alleyway would take me to the bottom, perhaps merging with others on the way, but definitely down. And that was good.
I could either come across the undercover policemen on my way down, or they could seize me from behind, after that
