Rubem Fonseca - Winning the Game and Other Stories

“I hate you!”

“Don’t yell, you’re going to wake the old man.”

The old man lives in the rear of the store, downstairs.

“How am I going to wake him up if he doesn’t sleep?”

“I don’t like to see you yelling.”

“I’m yelling! I’m yelling!”

Augusto embraces Kelly and she sobs, her face against his chest. Kelly’s tears wet Augusto’s shirt.

“Why don’t you take me to the Santo Antônio Convent? Please, take me to the Santo Antônio Convent.”

Saint Anthony is considered a saint for those seeking marriage. On Tuesdays the convent is filled with single women of all ages making vows to the saint. It’s a very good day for beggars, as the women, after praying to the saint, always give alms to the poor petitioners, and the saint may notice that act of charity and decide in favor of their petition.

Augusto doesn’t know what to do with Kelly. He says he’s going to the store to talk with the old man.

The old man is lying in bed in the small room at the rear of the store. The bed is so narrow that he doesn’t fall out of it only because he never sleeps.

“May I speak with you a bit?”

The old man sits up in bed. He motions for Augusto to sit beside him.

“Why do people want to go on living?”

“You want to know why I want to go on living, as old as I am?”

“No, all people.”

“Why do you want to go on living?” the old man asks.

“I like trees. I want to finish writing my book. But sometimes I think about killing myself. Tonight Kelly hugged me, crying, and I felt the urge to die.”

“You want to die so as to put an end to other people’s suffering? Not even Christ managed that.”

“Don’t talk to me of Christ,” Augusto says.

“I stay alive because I don’t have a lot of pains in my body and I enjoy eating. And I have good memories. I’d also stay alive if I didn’t have any memories at all,” says the old man.

“What about hope?”

“In reality hope only liberates the young.”

“But at the Timpanas you said—”

“That hope is a kind of liberation … But you have to be young to take advantage of it.”

Augusto climbs the stairs back to his walkup.

“I gave the rats some cheese,” Kelly says.

“Do you have some good memory of your life?” Augusto asks.

“No, my memories are all horrible.”

“I’m going out,” Augusto says.

“Will you be back?” Kelly asks.

Augusto says he’s going to walk in the streets. Solvitur ambulando.

On Rosário Street, empty, since it’s nighttime, near the flower market, he sees a guy destroying a public telephone; it’s not the first time he’s run into that individual. Augusto doesn’t like to interfere in other people’s lives, which is the only way to walk in the streets in the late hours, but Augusto doesn’t like the destroyer of public phones. Not because he cares about the phones—since he left the water and sewerage department he has never once spoken on a telephone—but because he doesn’t like the guy’s face; he shouts “Cut that shit out,” and the vandal runs off in the direction of Monte Castelo Square.

Now Augusto is on Ouvidor, heading toward Mercado Street, where there’s no more market at all; there used to be one, a monumental iron structure painted green, but it was torn down, and they left only a tower. Ouvidor, which by day is so crammed with people that one can’t walk without bumping into others, is deserted. Augusto walks along the odd-numbered side of the street, and two guys come toward him from the opposite direction, on the same side of the street, some two hundred yards away. Augusto quickens his pace. At night it’s not enough to walk fast in the street, it’s also necessary to avoid having the path blocked, and so he crosses over to the even-numbered side. The two guys cross to the even-numbered side, and Augusto returns to the odd-numbered side. Some of the stores have security guards, but the guards aren’t stupid enough to get involved in someone else’s mugging. Now the guys separate, and one comes down the even-numbered side and the other down the odd-numbered side. Augusto continues walking, faster, toward the guy on the even side, who hasn’t increased the speed of his steps and seems even to have slowed his pace a little, a thin guy, unshaven, designer shirt and dirty sneakers, who exchanges a look with his partner on the other side, somewhat surprised at the speed of Augusto’s steps. When Augusto is about five yards from the man on the even-numbered side, the guy on the odd-numbered side crosses the street and joins his accomplice. They both stop. Augusto comes closer and, when he is slightly more than a yard from the men, crosses to the even-numbered side and continues ahead at the same speed. “Hey!” one of the guys says. But Augusto keeps on going without turning his head, his good ear attuned to the sound of footsteps behind him; by the sound he can tell if his pursuers are walking or running after him. When he gets to the Pharoux pier, he looks back and sees no one.

His Casio Melody plays Haydn’s three a.m. music; it’s time to write his book, but he doesn’t want to go home and face Kelly. Solvitur ambulando. He goes to the Mineiros pier, walks to the boat moorings at Quinze Square, listening to the sea beat against the stone wall.

He waits for day to break, standing at dockside. The ocean waters reek. The tide rises and falls as it meets the sea wall, causing a sound that seems like a sigh, or a moan. It’s Sunday; the day comes forth gray. On Sunday the majority of restaurants downtown don’t open; like all Sundays, today will be a bad day for the poor who live on the remains of discarded food.

“THE WALTHER’S HOT, IF THEY CATCH YOU WITH IT, it’ll spill over to us. After you do the job, throw it away, in the ocean or the lake.”

“Leave it to me,” I said.

The Dispatcher went on. “Remember the Glock and the shit storm it caused?” As if I could forget the black guy who pretended he was living in the rocks with the cockroaches but wasn’t one of us, and smelled of scented soap and wore a fancy watch and when he stuck his hand in his waistband to pull out the piece, I shot him in the head and took his weapon, a Glock 18, automatic, a beauty, the best thing to ever come out of Austria. But it was hot, and when they caught me with it, they worked me over and broke two teeth here in front, crippled my right hand. They wanted me to confess to killing the black guy and said they’d go easy on me if I told them who’d hired me, but I didn’t open my trap and didn’t confess to a goddamn thing.

“You didn’t know who ordered it.”

“By the victim, you suspect who’s behind it. It’s simple. Want me to say his name? Don’t fuck with me, old pal, look at my false teeth, my gimpy hand. I knew, I was tortured, and I didn’t rat anyone out.”

“They broke the wrong hand,” said the Dispatcher. “If they knew you were a lefty …”

I walked away with the fool still talking to himself. I went to the hotel where the customer was staying—that was the name, customer, we used for the guy who was going to be hit. I called my girlfriend to be beside me at the door.

I don’t enjoy popping anybody, but it’s my job. The Dispatcher told me one day he read in a book that a man just needs two things, fucking and working, but all I needed was fucking; work is for shit. But I use a disguise: to everyone I’m a vendor of computer products, and I always carry around a small leather briefcase full of brochures.

Before we went to the hotel, my girlfriend arrived at my apartment and took off her clothes and her white body filled the darkened room with light and I looked at her ass to see if it had any marks from her bikini or the sun. She knew if she showed the least hint of suntan I’d beat the hell out of her, but her ass was whiter than an ambulance.