Just a second, says Felix.
What?
He’s not going to make it anyway, is he? He’s already dead, isn’t he?
He’s breathing, see?
It’s Santos.
Who gives a damn who it is?
Santos is a corrupt asshole.
You want to let him bleed to death?
He makes everyone’s life hell here. He’s preventing us from getting water, think about it, they don’t want to bump him off for nothing.
What? Get the pickup, David, hurry!
Yeah. He’s got enemies here. Give me the gun, David.
Are you crazy? You want to play avenger of the poor?
Santos is an asshole and has been shot, we have to put him out of his misery.
The man has to go to the hospital!
I’m going to shoot him now. An act of mercy.
Felix, cut the crap.
Step aside.
Felix!
I’m going to shoot him now.
FELIX RAISED THE GUN and aimed it at the policeman’s head, I grabbed his arm. We wrestled. The Heckler & Koch went off. It was only a joke, man! I kneeled in the dirt, Felix stood next to me, a fine mist wafted from the Heckler & Koch: Felix missed Santos and hit the dog instead. That was supposed to be a joke, Svensson! Idiot! The shot sobered us up. On the way to the state hospital on Avenida Osvaldo Cruz, the pickup now weaves around the huts and the holes, avoiding the sleeping bodies and the waking dogs. David honks, David yells, David slams on the gas so hard that the stones spray. In the back of the truck Tuuli is holding Santos’s head in her hands, the corrupt district policeman and local candidate of the Workers’ Party has closed his eyes and is breathing shallowly and rapidly. Lula is lying with his head close to Santos and moves only when the pickup jolts over the speed bumps. Felix and I heaved the dog onto the back of the truck too, with the lambskin from the seats as a cushion. Lambskin and dog and candidate are blood-soaked. Felix and I have a healthy respect for big dogs, Felix keeps the weapon pointed at the wounded animal to be safe. Tuuli with her finger on the candidate’s neck looks at me and smiles, I smile back and wonder why I’m smiling. We have a severely wounded police officer in the back of the truck, a Heckler & Koch in hand, a half-dead dog on the lambskin. I’m worrying about fingerprints and gunshot residues. The crack of the shot is still ringing in our ears. When we opened our eyes three minutes ago, the candidate was still lying in his pool of blood, his eyes closed and his lips pressed together as if he were waiting for death. I let go of Felix’s arm with David’s Heckler & Koch and stood up, we stopped our wrestling. Felix tried to explain his joke: he hadn’t wanted to shoot the man, of course not! A joke, Svensson, a joke! The shot had simply gone off, Felix explained, under no circumstances had he really wanted to shoot. You have to know when the fun stops, Tuuli finally said. Lula was lying in the dust, his left foreleg split open or broken off over the joint. The policeman’s heavy dog tried without orientation or control to get back on his feet, without making a sound, not a bark, not a yelp, nothing. With each attempt to stand up he sooner or later put his left foreleg on the ground, but the bone gave way again and again, his leg was attached to the rest of his body only by fur and sinews. The candidate’s dog fell again and again on his side and finally stayed down. The animal blood mingled with the human blood, in the dust they were the same color. Help me, Tuuli said, laying her hand on Lula’s heavy head. She grabbed the dangling foreleg and tied it off with the dog’s neckerchief. Meanwhile Santos refused to stop breathing, he clung to life, to the dog and maybe even to Tuuli.
The man is dying, Tuuli says with her finger on the candidate’s pulse, faster! We’re driving along the main street of Seraverde, the bars are closing or are opening again, red and blue paper is wafting down the side streets and getting caught in the trees, there are shards everywhere, everywhere there are dogs rooting around in the garbage, the street sweepers sweep, a pig is strolling about. It’s taking us too long. David honks the horn and disregards the right of way, between the streetlamps hang red garlands and blue paper flower chains. The yellow light over everything is fading when we reach the hospital, a bungalow under fluorescent lights. David stops next to the emergency room and shouts, oi! Edson! The nurses know the pickup, it brings the emergency cases from the garbage street, the problem births, burn victims, gunshot victims. They know Felix and David, they pay with money from donations, they always pay immediately. A nurse wheels a metal stretcher out the door, oi, David, meu irmão! Oi, gringos! Behind a glass pane a female doctor wearing rubber gloves is talking on the phone, she’s smoking. The four of us lift Santos onto the stretcher, he’s no longer groaning. The doctor is a volunteer from Birmingham and shines a flashlight in Santos’s eyes. He was lying outside the door, says David, someone shot him and left him on the doorstep, safado. The doctor stamps out her cigarette, today all hell has broken loose, she says, today the knives are dancing. It’s Santos, says Felix. Yes, says the doctor, pressing her stethoscope to an unbloodied spot on Santos’s neck. We have ten stretchers, she says, as she closes the glassy eyes of the district policeman and PT candidate, we can’t work wonders for everyone.
WE REPORTED ALMOST everything to the police, David translated. We didn’t say anything about the dog and the gunshot, the Heckler & Koch is in the glove compartment of the pickup. Tuuli smoked a cigarette with the doctor, we signed our statements and were permitted to go. We’ll clear up the rest tomorrow, gringos, the police said, we’ll come by. The decision on Rua do Lixo has been made. Red is dead, says Felix, long live blue! On the murderers’ field the blue trio elétrico is playing merengue and forró again. I with the twenty-four hours of red and blue in my bones scarcely believe my eyes and ears. The garbage street wakes up as if nothing happened. Are the children yelling just as loudly as yesterday? Are the chickens clucking and the goats bleating? Are the men raising their hands in greeting? Oi, gringos? Are they raising their bottles? The bell of the church shack in time to all this? Are we supposed to believe in Macumba? And are those vultures up there in the sky? Lula is still lying in the back of the truck, and I with my first dead man in my bones sit next to the animal and swallow my tears. David parks the truck outside the door, we lift the heavy dog off the truck and onto the dried lambskin in the middle of the courtyard. Lula has closed his eyes, he isn’t barking or growling, his leg has stopped bleeding. I can’t go on. I wonder whether Lula will survive, I wonder how to wash off the blood without running water. I wonder whether the police will think we’re the murderers when the investigations continue tomorrow, when they discover the water conduit, when they remember our Heckler & Koch, when they find the great policeman Santos’s dog with us. I take the chain off Lula’s neck and hope that he goes away, but Lula can’t go away.