Rita arrived while Rat was sleeping. He woke up and beat her without making a sound. He didn’t want to wake up whoever was sleeping on the other side of the divider. And he also didn’t want to hurt her. Rita asked him not to do that anymore. “It’s not necessary,” she said, “I’ll stay with you as long as you want.”
Shitty life. He had to leave the city. He had no way of hiding indefinitely. Anyone who had seen him even once would be able to pick him out of a crowd. He had to change cities or even states. The balance he had accumulated with Japa in the savings account, which was now solely his, should be enough to start over someplace where he didn’t have to hide all day and go out only at night. He wasn’t a bat, he thought, despite it being said that bats and rats were related. If that were true, at least he had gotten the good part; he didn’t fly, but he also wasn’t blind.
The next morning, after reconciling with Rita, he decided to go out to check the status of the bank account he had with Japa. The bank was on Rua do Catete, four stations beyond Siqueira Campos. He took a shower, put on a clean pressed suit, a dress shirt and tie, got his ID and bank card. He descended the Tabajaras slope as if on his way to pick up his car parked on Siqueira Campos but instead he entered the subway station, bought a round-trip ticket, and in a few minutes arrived at the Catete stop. Depending on the balance in the account, he would leave for São Paulo or Vitória. He couldn’t say why one or the other. Maybe the size of the city, the number of people in the street, the behavior of the police...
“Yes sir?” said a guard at the turnstile, where bank customers received tickets to see a clerk.
“I want to check the balance in my savings account.”
“For that you don’t need a ticket, you can check it on the ATM. Any one that’s unoccupied. Over there, in that row of ATMs. Just use your card.”
He took the card from his pocket, checked the password on a small piece of paper kept in his wallet, and went to the first available machine. He chose the options that he wanted, typed in the two passwords requested by the machine, and removed the printed slip with the balance. He didn’t immediately understand what it said. He ordered another printout, then went to look for the clerk who was helping customers and asked the meaning of what was printed on the yellow slip of paper.
“What is it you want to know?” asked the clerk.
“I want to know my balance.”
The clerk took the paper and looked at it for several seconds, then said, “Your balance is zero, sir. Your savings account was closed.”
“Zero? Closed? I never closed any account. Where did my money go?”
“You had best speak with the manager. I only help customers in the use of ATMs.”
It was a ground-floor apartment in the rear, with windows that looked out only on a deteriorating wall two meters beyond the living room window. The apartment door had never been painted and the doorbell hung from the hole that should have housed it. At least it worked. At the second ring, a middle-aged woman opened the door halfway and hung onto the knob with one hand.
“Good evening, my name is Rita, I’m—”
“I know who you are,” said the woman in an openly unfriendly manner. “Are you here for the booty or for your man?”
“Who are you?”
“Who are you, ma’am? I’m Rat’s partner’s sister. And I’ll repeat the question: are you here looking for the booty or for Rat?”
“Do you know where he is?”
“Of course. The same place he sent my brother to.”
“He’s in jail?”
“No. He’s dead.”
Silence. The two women were still at the threshold, one inside grasping the doorknob, the other outside, arms hanging loose at her side. No sound came from inside the apartment; an indistinct noise came from the street, as if it were far away.
“Dead?”
“Or disappeared, which is the same thing.”
“And the other thing you asked if I came looking for?”
“The booty? You don’t know what it is? It’s what’s stolen from the defeated, the product of illegal work, robbery. Or do you think what Rat did was legitimate work?”
“You said your brother and he were partners.”
“My brother was a lawyer. What he did was get his man out of jail or keep him from getting arrested. Rat paid my brother for his work as a lawyer. They didn’t do the same thing.”
“I don’t know your name.”
“Zilda.”
“I don’t know why you’re talking to me like this. And I didn’t know your brother or you, ma’am. I came here because Rat said, in case of a problem, to look for his partner and gave me this address. I’m not here to fight or ask anybody for anything. I just want someone to tell me what they did with Rat.”
“I already told you. Probably the same thing they did to my brother. Beat him to death, then throw his body in a hole somewhere.”
Rita stared at Zilda without knowing what to say. She waited for the other woman to say or do something, but she just went on gripping the doorknob with both hands. Rita turned and left in the direction of the building’s entrance.
Dead. With each passing day the word took on the most varied meanings. Some days it even meant its opposite, life, but this word too lost its value, coming to mean merely “not dead.” Rita’s head had not been nurtured enough with ideas capable of filling the emptiness she felt since Rat had disappeared. Zilda made no distinction between Rat’s death and the death of her brother. They were cheap deaths, second-class deaths, devoid of ceremony or emotion. So poor that neither of the two bore a true name. One of them called himself Rat and the other was known as Japa.
Rita didn’t know what to say, and she had difficulty figuring out how to express her feelings, as if for the privileged classes there were catalogs of sentiments, one for every situation, and she had no personal or literary references to orient her at such moments. So she didn’t suffer, for fear of suffering the wrong way. Rat was her only reference in situations like this.
She walked away without knowing which way to go. Rat spoke a lot about Cinelândia, just as he spoke of the activity in Lapa. Rita didn’t like Lapa, or didn’t like Japa’s sister who lived in Lapa, and she extrapolated her displeasure to the rest of the neighborhood that she hadn’t even gotten to see properly. She asked someone the shortest route to Cinelândia and followed the instructions, hopeful of finding Rat or some trace of him. She wasn’t wearing her “work” clothes and her petite size and absence of makeup made her look like a young woman recently out of adolescence and curious about adult life. She’d been told this was the busiest night in Lapa and its surrounding areas. But she wasn’t interested in the liveliness of the place, she wanted only to be able to move in the midst of the crowd without being noticed. That was what Rat used to do. And because of this she couldn’t understand how Rat had been caught. Ever since leaving Cinelândia he was extremely careful; besides which, he knew how to disguise himself. Even with his peculiar physical type and physiognomy he managed to pass unnoticed among people he had known for a long time. How could he have been caught? While she looked for the subway entrance, Rita tried to put herself in Rat’s place and think as he would if he were caught.
To her, Rat would only be caught if he was the victim of a trap resulting from a tip-off. This was her first thought. He wouldn’t be caught because of distraction. And who would be capable of setting that trap? He had no real friends, he didn’t even socialize, he spoke only when necessary. Few knew of his life and habits. And even fewer could set a trap for him. The first such person, Rita had thought, was Japa, because he knew Rat intimately, in addition to being his business partner and lawyer. The second was Zilda, Japa’s sister and caregiver, who had known Rat as long as her brother. The third was she herself, Rita, who lived with and slept with Rat but to whom Rat was still a mystery. And, finally, the two female friends who introduced her to Rat and were protected by him and knew where he lived. Those were the five people who could have set a trap for Rat or acted as informers for the police.