It all had been to stay alive. I hadn’t chosen to be brought into such an extreme situation of having to use a gun. They were the ones, all of them, who wished to reduce my existence to achieve their goals. I had to play with the tools I had been given.
It was depressing. I knew that all these terrible pictures, these awful sounds and smells, would never leave my mind. Not even when I went back home, draped in my sheets, they wouldn’t leave me alone. They would never—
“Who’s there?” I said. I opened my eyes, stared at the ceiling. The trolley swung to and fro. I heard a name again, it came in through the windows, billowing in with the breeze. But I was high in the slum, wasn’t I? No voice could reach me here.
My descent stopped, someone stopped the car. The emergency brake was what thrust my body forward and forced me to kill that man. People were aware of my running away. And they would not take it easily. These guys will never stop, not until I’m captured.
I pushed his body aside. He died face down and I let him remain that way. It was not my intent to look at his face, to see if he closed his eyes after the gunshots. His blood, spilt over my legs, dyed my gown red.
I elbowed myself up, heaved my torso to sit straight. Blood streamed down my face, down through my eyes and into my mouth. I raised my hand, touched my forehead, and figured that a gash had been opened above my eyebrow.
I reached over for the broom, I groped for a firm spot on the floor, some way to hoist myself up. Then I moved, piece by piece, to rise to the height of windows and face outside.
Blood accumulated on the floor, streaming up and down the surface, following the rhythm of the ocean breeze. The steel surface had raised patterns, created to be skid resistant, but it only served as an intricate path for the blood to drift.
The car had stopped high in the sky, far away from rooftops, even farther from the loading platforms, either the one on top or at the bottom of the slum. Who called my name?
No, it was not my name. I only heard a noise. A noise coming from the wind, coming from the birds flying overhead, coming from the hinges and cables and pulleys.
It was only a noise. I was isolated. Alone. And aware that all those eyes on the ground were on me. The valuable asset hanging over the favela.
And now I was stuck. It hadn’t occurred to me that the car I was on might halt to a full stop as I went down its cables. I had taken the control man with me, dead beside my feet. But someone else who knew how to operate the cables was left behind. Someone hit that big red button that screamed emergency and stopped the car from moving, the blood from running.
But I still had my gun. And outside the slum’s inner walls, the whole city could see me.
Why did they stop the car? Why did they stop it?
A noise came in again. Someone gurgled indistinct words. So indistinct that they might be gurgling my name. Yes, it was coming from the sky. A gurgling in the clouds, a helicopter whirred closer to hover over my flying car.
Or perhaps to riddle my body with holes.
The helicopter was not the police one I had seen on the soccer field. This one was brighter, coated in white and yellow and orange, and instead of conveying danger, it wanted to be seen.
It was a news helicopter. It carried cameras instead of rifles.
“Help! I’m here! I need help!” I screamed, my voice faint through the openings of the trolley’s jammed windows. And I could bet they heard it, because after flying a bit closer, the helicopter stood still in mid-air, staring at me.
My fate was about to change.
Chapter 34
Rio was a city of many mounts, most of them populated by jumbles of ramshackle homes like I’d seen in Gloria Santa. A few of them , however, were seemingly inhabitable, as its vertical rocky faces demotivated even the boldest squatter from building a tent and starting a new community.
Past the helicopter, soaring towards the clouds, I noticed, for the first time, Christ the Redeemer with his arms outstretched. It stood on top of Corcovado, Rio’s highest, grayest rocky hill.
Before flying in, I thought of paying it a visit, of contemplating the city from such an advantageous point of view. But now, I’d rather see it in postcards or on the internet.
Looking up from inside the trolley, I swore the statue had been perfectly aligned with the slum, its arms opened for me, its face looking down offering pity. It was as though it was telling me that divine providence was on its way. The Lord writes straight with crooked lines, says the Bible.
But not humans. We are fallible. Humans deviate from the straight path when living in crooked houses.
I needed to get down. Divine providence had already acted on my life. It had sent the helicopter to the sky, the rotor blades that would connect my face to true people, to those that would be willing to help.
I had to consider my boss had read the email I had sent her. She always checks her inbox. Maybe the US Embassy in Rio, the real one, had by now taken notice of my situation. I could feel the universe conspiring to help me. It would all end up well. I only needed the trolley to go down, down to the bottom of
