Alexandre Vidal Porto - Sergio Y.

I am a bit of a germaphobe. I say “a bit” because I believe my obsession is under control. I have my preferences and my way of doing things, but they do not result in mental blocks which prevent me from leading a normal life. If I were to wash my hands every time I had the urge, I would do it about thirty times a day. However, if needed, I can go a whole day without washing them, although it might cause me great consternation.

About six or seven years ago I came to the conclusion that newsprint made my hands dirty. This caused me such discomfort that at a certain point I simply decided to stop reading newspapers altogether so as not to dirty my fingers. One day, someone told me about Japanese gloves made for this exact purpose: handling newspaper without staining one’s fingers. I found them in a store in Liberdade and I bought twelve packets all at once. They cost me an arm and a leg, but for many years they gave me peace of mind while reading.

Now things are different. I read the news online. I spray an antiseptic solution once every night on my computer keyboard just to satisfy my obsessional neurosis. I also use a mini vacuum cleaner and a hand sanitizer. With these measures I manage.

Every day, between midnight and one A.M., after reviewing my day’s notes, I turn on my computer. First, I check my e-mail. I reply to those messages that require immediate attention. Then, I proceed to the others. When I have answered everything I can, usually at about 1:30 A.M., I start reading the online newspapers.

Sometimes, depending on when I go to bed, I can read the next day’s edition. When this happens, I have the advantage of waking up having already read the day’s news. The downside is that, during the day, the news rarely surprises me because I have already read it. But at least it frees up time for other activities.

My early morning reading sessions help me relax. The light from the screen hypnotizes me after a while. Slowly, I begin to doze off. I’m not the only one who uses reading to induce sleep. A lot of people do. Around 2 to 2:15 A.M., I turn off the computer, get up, brush my teeth and go to bed.

The problem is that some news is so disturbing that instead of inducing sleep, it causes restlessness and anxiety.

The first time a news story struck me as so disconcerting that I could not sleep was in 2001, on September 11. The detailed coverage of the attacks on New York disturbed me deeply. Today, the memory of all that destruction has dissipated. But I think I will never forget what I felt then. I spent the night awake, turning over images and thoughts in my mind that I could not digest.

The second time I felt something similar, that kept me completely awake, was about a year ago, in February of 2011. I was about to turn off the computer when I came across the following item:

New York police have identified the body found on Thursday as that of Sergio Yacoubian, the son of businessman Salomão Yacoubian. Yacoubian, 23, lived in Manhattan, where he owned a restaurant. The Brazilian fell from the fourth floor of his home in the West Village. Police believe he may have been the victim of a homicide, although there are no suspects yet. When contacted by this reporter in São Paulo, the family refused comment.

Perhaps some unconscious defense mechanism was at work, but I did not associate the victim with my former patient right away. The name seemed familiar, but I needed a few seconds to make the connection between that dead Brazilian in Manhattan and the Sergio Y whom I had only really discharged from my care a few weeks ago.

The news astonished me. My initial reaction was one of denial. I hoped to discover that it was a namesake, of the same age and same profession. He had been my patient. His mother had told me he was fine. He had everything he needed to be happy. He was young. It could not be him.

But it was.

In general, learning that someone of an advanced age has died does not move me. As a doctor, I am very familiar with the fact that age degenerates and kills the body. For me, it is clear that life leads to death. For me, it is easy to accept.

An old man has had time to experience life’s defining moments. The death of a man who has had time to live should arouse no pity. It is not that I do not regret the loss of that person, but the death of an elderly individual does not affect me very deeply. Everyone dies, really. It is just a matter of who goes first.

On the other hand, I have a hard time assimilating the death of a young person. It moves me to hear when their lives have been cut short. They die of incurable diseases, needless traffic accidents, in a climate of outrage. Even when peaceful, their deaths are always violent.

Not only do the young die prematurely; they also die in fear. And to die young and in fear is the worst way to die, because death looks the victim in the eye and it is recognized. The victim has time to see death coming and to understand that he is about to die.

The body of the fearful boy found in the backyard of his home in Manhattan and the body of my former patient coincided in name, nationality and DNA. They lived in the same city. They were the same age. There were no dissimilarities.

On the Internet, I tried researching the crime in the New York newspapers but to no avail. The death merited a small note in an unimportant newspaper. It was the only record.

Sergio Y., twenty-three-year-old, Brazilian, a culinary school graduate, perhaps a promising restaurant owner, a former patient of Dr. Armando’s, was murdered in Manhattan.

My teenage patient, Salomão Yacoubian’s sole heir, moves to New York to study cooking and ends up dead, at whose hands and why, nobody knows. For all practical purposes, this was the chain of events I first formed in my mind.

Then came the questions. What happened? Did he get involved in drugs? Who killed him? A friend? A burglar? A girlfriend? An employee? How did a patient who had left my office full of optimism get to this point? What were the events leading up to his foreign death?

There were no answers, Sergio’s death made no sense to me. I could think of nothing else. The circumstances surrounding his death became my obsession.

The truth is that I knew very little. I did not have enough elements to satisfactorily answer the questions I had about the murder. I knew that death had been inflicted, that it had not been natural. I could deduce nothing further, I could only imagine.

In the days that followed, I looked for information about Sergio Y.’s death in the press but found nothing.

Four days after reading the news that had kept me awake all night, I found the following funeral notice, which was published in the two leading newspapers of São Paulo:

It is with great sadness that Tereza and Salomão Yacoubian fulfill the duty of communicating the death of their son SERGIO EMÍLIO YACOUBIAN, which occurred on February 2nd in New York City. Mass for the benefit of his soul will be held on February 9, at 11 A.M., at the Armenian Apostolic Church of Brazil, on Avenida Santos Dumont, 55, in the city of São Paulo.

I have since learned that, while I agonized over unanswered questions, Tereza and Salomão had gone to New York, accompanied by their lawyer, in order to release their son’s body.

The New York City Police Department took five days to authorize sending the body to Brazil. The coffin went straight from the airport to the cemetery, where only the closest relatives attended the funeral. Once underground, Sergio Y. could finally disappear, yielding his place in the world to someone else.

I chose a very dark charcoal suit for the Mass. I put on a white dress shirt and a purple tie, the color of mourning, to convey an air of solemnity, in my view appropriate when in the physical presence of death. The day was sunny, and I wore sunglasses. I sat in one of the last pews, my mind devoid of thoughts, waiting, listening to the priest recite the liturgy, taking my cue from the others when to stand and sit.