Rubem Fonseca: Winning the Game and Other Stories

I was tense all day, and as the time approached I got worse. I had to get that woman.

Then the intercom rang.

“It’s Louise.”

I pushed the button. A short time later the bell to my apartment rang. I opened the door.

She was a very pale woman, with hair so dark it looked dyed. She was wearing a miniskirt that displayed her beautiful, long white legs.

“Come in, please.”

There she stood, the woman I was looking for. She came in. I asked her to have a seat.

“A lovely apartment. Is it yours?”

“I have another one, in the Barra. I rent this one.”

“My real name is Diana.”

“Mine is Carlos.”

“Take a look at this photo of Louise Brooks,” she said.

I looked. A black and white photo. Her hair was of an unusual blackness and her skin was very white. A beautiful woman.

“Want something to drink?”

“A little whiskey.”

I got from the pantry a bottle of whiskey, one of mineral water, and a bucket of ice.

“I like mine without ice, just whiskey and water, more whiskey than water,” I said.

“Ice with mine, please, and lots of water.”

I fixed our drinks and put the glasses on a tray.

“Do you have anything to munch on?” she asked.

“I’ll check inside there, be right back,” I replied.

I dawdled, sitting in the pantry holding the bag of cookies. I wanted to give her time.

After some minutes I returned. Louise lifted her glass.

“I’d like to make a toast, in hopes that our relationship is a lasting one, as you said in your e-mail.”

I raised my glass to my lips.

“Before drinking I’d like to get something salty from the kitchen,” I said. “I only brought cookies.”

I went to the kitchen, carrying my glass. I returned with a plate of savory snacks.

I raised the glass. “To a lasting relationship,” I said.

“Cheers,” she answered, clinking her glass against mine.

We drank while we chatted.

She had lost her father, and the widowed mother she lived with was very controlling. She had no other relatives.

I told her I had four sisters, all older than me. I said I would like to travel with her, go to Paris or New York. I already had the money for the trip put aside. She said she’d like to see Katmandu.

“I’m going to get more water from the kitchen,” I said, getting up.

But as soon as I stood up, I staggered, supporting myself on the back on the armchair.

“I feel a bit dizzy …”

She hugged me.

“Are you really dizzy or is that just a trick so I’ll put my arms around you?” She grabbed my cock, which was soft. “In a little while I’ll make it hard. Sit down on the sofa for a moment,” she said.

I sat down and immediately my head fell forward.

“Carlos, Carlos, are you all right?”

No answer.

Soon afterwards, she shook my arm.

“Carlos, can you hear me?”

I remained silent.

I heard the sound of Diana trying to open the bedroom door. I felt her hands going through my pockets. Then I heard her voice, she must be talking on a cell phone.

“Igor, he collapsed. The things must be locked in another room. Yes, I’ll wait. You know the address, don’t you? Ring the buzzer.”

I lay there in the armchair, not moving. I heard the buzzer.

“It’s Igor,” said the voice on the intercom.

“Come on up,” said Diana.

Sound of the door being opened.

“Was it easy?” A man’s voice.

“A piece of cake. I think there’s jewels, cash, everything that counts in that locked bedroom. But I couldn’t find the key.”

“It must be in his pocket.”

“I searched him. There’s no key. Igor, let’s do the guy, the whole bit.”

“I don’t like that, Marta.”

“He saw my goddamn face. If you cut his throat, he won’t feel a thing. The whole bit, Igor, and you walk away with half and get to screw me too.”

“Let’s break down that door,” said Igor.

But the door opened before they could break it down.

The two cops working with me came out of the bedroom with guns pointed at them. They ordered the couple to get down on the floor with their hands behind them.

While the pair were being handcuffed, I got up from the sofa.

“Marta Castro and Igor da Silva, you’re under arrest for the murder of Edgard Gouveia,” I said.

They began a heated argument in which Igor said that it was Marta’s idea, that she had forced him to kill the guy, and Marta said she had tried to stop him but Igor had killed him anyway.

“It was you who killed him,” Marta repeated.

“You gave the order, you whore,” Igor said.

The argument went on all the way to the precinct, where they were booked and held without bail. They would be sentenced to long prison terms.

Before being locked away, Marta spoke with me.

“You didn’t black out, and I put a heavy dose of barbiturates in your drink. What happened?”

“When I went to the kitchen, I switched glasses. The one I drank out of was clean.”

“How did you discover me?”

“By examining the computer belonging to your victim, Edgard Gouveia, whom you killed by cutting his throat. It was all there, the chat with Louise Brooks. You should have changed names.”

“But I wanted to be her. Louise looks a lot like me, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, a lot,” I replied.

And she did, really. An unusual face. Marta could be a photographic model or an actress in film. Without even changing her name. But by the time she gets out of prison it’ll be too late.

ONCE, I WAS IN LOVE WITH A GIRL and to prove to her the magnitude of my feeling cut off the little finger of my right hand. They say passion is a pathological condition, a sickness that luckily is transitory.

Though I was never in love with Nelly, I married her. I’m a writer, and all writers (with notorious exceptions) are poor devils. Nelly had money, inherited from her father, in addition to making quite a lot in her profession as a lawyer specializing in indemnities.

I have to tell the truth. I was a failure as a writer. Not even that, I wasn’t even a failure, which would be something, I was a writer who’d never managed to get published. I sent my originals to countless publishers and every one, without exception, was returned, with those routine hypocritical explanations. I spoke with Nelly to see if she could finance the publication of one of my books, just one, with those publishing houses that do that, but she asked me if I had no shame and said she’d have no part of something as unworthy as that.

Nelly is very jealous and has hired a team of private detectives who watch me day and night. You know how I met Michele, the passion of my life? At the office of Dr. Amancio, a surgeon friend of mine. He let me use one of the rooms and I made love to Michele on one of the hospital beds. Actually, it was Amancio who found the solution to my problem, about which I’ll have more to say later.

For Michele I’d cut off any finger, my whole hand, anything but my dick. I like making love to Michele. Making love with passion demands a rite, a protocol, pomp, solemnity. But for that, the body of the woman you’re going to make love to needs to be very beautiful, perfect, like Michele’s. Or that you find to be perfect, which amounts to the same thing. Pirandello is right: if it seems that way to you, it is. Here’s the rite, which encompasses the five senses: the woman lies down in bed, completely nude, and you contemplate her body, from head to toe, front and back. You look at every detail, the neck, the shoulder blades, the navel, the knee, the toes, the mouth, the eyes, open so you can distinguish the color, and closed, so you can see the lash and the dark circles, every woman has them, some more pronounced, others more subtle. Next you lightly brush the belly and the breasts, and the inside of the thighs. The skin has nerve endings and corpuscles, the so-called tactile receptors, which make the body sensitive to the caress. Next you bring your nose close to her body and smell the aroma of each part, the hair, the underarms, the breasts, the feet, the vagina, the back, the buttocks. Then, following the ritual, you taste the woman by lightly biting and running your tongue over her entire body, lips, tongue, breasts, again the underarms, the belly, navel, legs, not forgetting the part behind the knees, and also the feet and finally the vagina—in the vulva, where the tongue must explore all the recesses, for the tastes of the vagina are countless and varied in each fragment, and at certain moments you should shape your tongue into a cone and stick it as far as possible into that voluptuously flavorful fissure. Afterward, the buttocks and anus. The tongue must roam and discover the pleasures contained in that magic orifice of extremely high sensitivity that can afford a sublime delight.