While this is story is based upon elements of New Moon by Stephenie Meyer, she owns everything in that universe. I own nothing other than my own imagination and a nearly-new Dell Studio laptop.
This is a one-shot, borne from an idea I was kicking around while observing a colleague teaching a history class. Blame the colleague; she had the entire Twilight set resting on a shelf two feet away from me, and watching 7th graders take a quiz on medieval Japan is mindnumbingly boring.
I have never been to Brazil. I do not speak Portuguese. Any mistakes I made are purely my own.
At one time my home was filled with life and laughter. Luisa had filled it with the aroma of galinha com caril, espetinho, and feijoada, every night a different dish, all prepared to perfection, even though made with only the simplest of ingredients. And she'd filled our home with love. We were poor, yes, but no more so than our neighbors in Dona Marta, no more so than much of Rio De Janeiro, a city that was both glamorous and full of danger.
The dangers of Rio's streets were nothing compared to the inescapable danger that consumed minha esposa Luisa. Cancer of the womb, the doutor called it. If we had been born a few dozen kilometers away, in the Zona Sul, we would have had the money to treatmyLuisa. As it was, my salary from the leather factory barely put clothing on our backs and food on the table. The doutor treated Luisa with herbs, but they did no good. The cancer took her, as swiftly and surely as night falls across the city.
To care for Luisa as the end drew nearer, meu irmão Tomas and his wife moved into our home. They are a quarrelsome couple, as different from Luisa and me as stone and water. Dores is full of superstitions, and it makes her all the more willing to find fault, all the more eager to lash out at others. A difficult woman to live with. I do not know how Tomas tolerates her. She is a terrible cook too, but few are as skilled in the kitchen as my Luisa was.
Even with the rent paid by the family whose loja de tobaco took up the crowded first floor of our building, I did not have enough to pay the doutor fees presented to me after Luisa passed. What I did have was the attic room of our narrow four story house, a cramped, frankly ugly space, accessible by an exterior staircase. It was the only floor not occupied, but it could easily house a person in need of a roof and four walls.
Dores would have been furiosa had she known I planned to rent out the space. The attic was at the head of her list of coisas malditas; the sound of rodents scurrying across its wooden floors convinced her that it was haunted. I told her nothing of my plans. I met the man who rented my attic room at Guilherme's bar. Sooner or later, every adult male who comes to our neighborhood passes through Guilherme's. It's the only place you can buy a cerveja for less than two reais. The cerveja is pretty good too, for that price.
So there I was, drinking my cerveja one evening, and in walked this young man. Actually, he didn't walk in so much as he glided in—I've never seen a man move so effortlessly. I say "man," but in reality he looked barely older than a boy in his late teens. Though he was as tall as a grown man, his face was unweathered and unlined. He was pale too, paler even than the turistas who rarely wandered into our neighborhood. His eyes though…they were not young. Not at all. Their strange deep golden color only emphasized the weary sadness they held. As though he'd seen the worst life had to offer, and no longer cared to look for anything more. His eyes were far too old for his young face.
In a voice both compelling and smooth as the honey Luisa once baked into her pão de mel, the young man spoke flawless Portuguese. He was looking for a room to rent, and willing to pay in advance for six months. Why such a man would want to rent a room in one of Brazil's favelas when he could clearly afford far better was a mystery. He certainly wasn't dressed like a turista. He wore a tailored suit that fit him to perfection, muito caro; that suit was finer than even the suit Pedrillo wore to his wedding. Pedrillo's suit had come from a tailor in the city center; his grandfather had insisted on paying for it. They'd had money once, that family, and Pedrillo's grandfather wanted him to reflect the family, no matter how far they'd fallen. So Pedrillo's suit was muito bom. But the young man who walked into Guiherme's, oh, his clothing put Pedrillo's to shame. His leather shoes alone would have cost me six month's salary. I should know, working as I do all day with fine leather. But nothing my factory produces compared to the leather on that young man's feet.
So I did not feel guilty when I doubled the rent I'd first planned to ask of him.
He stared at me intently for a long moment, until I almost wanted to retract the offer. Then he agreed to pay the sum I named without hesitation. I had expected him to negociar, and I was prepared to come down in my price, but no, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a billfold, removing a handful of reais. Surely he was unaware of what a terribly inviting target he made; I began to warn him of just that, but he cut me off, something suddenly fierce in his expression as he stated, "I can take care of myself."
And do you know, I believed him.
He followed me to my home, and after I made sure Dores was too busy to know what I was about, I led him up the exterior stairs to the top floor of the house. He made no comment upon seeing the condition of the attic room; it hardly seemed to interest him at all. He had only one request of me, complete privacy. He wanted no cleaning, no food prepared, nothing, just to be left completely alone.
As far as I was concerned, anyone willing to pay so much for one room with only a cold water tap and no electricity could have all the privacy he liked.
I didn't see the young man again for nearly a month. If he had any luggage, if he brought any furnishings to the room other than the simple cot and the rough wooden table and chair it already contained, I didn't hear of it. Were it not for the dim light of a single candle shining from the shuttered attic balcony late in the night (long after Dores was asleep, thank the anjos), I would never have known the young man was there at all.
One night, it was the middle of Março by now, I passed him on the street a few doors down from my house. He was wearing the same clothing he'd worn when we met, the same grey suit, the same blue shirt. He no longer looked wealthy though. The coat was gone, and the blue shirt was wrinkled and untucked. His bronze hair was more disheveled too, looking as though he used his hands instead of a brush upon it, and his face appeared even paler than it had before. Dark, bruise-like circles ringed his eyes…oh, those eyes. The look of pain in them reminded me of Luisa's cousin Paulo, who had been addicted to cocaína. His family had forced him to go through withdrawal, and Paulo's eyes had taken on that same expression of internal agony.
I did not think that my renter was a drug addict though. Despite his messy hair and clothing, he was clean shaven. Despite his hollow visage, he was not emaciated at all. Paolo had been nearly a skeleton; this man looked no different physically than he had the day we'd first met. The difference was mostly in his eyes; some profound torment of his soul cried out silently through his eyes. I could not imagine what would cause him such pain, but I found myself saying a prayer for him as he disappeared into the darkness.
Three nights later, long after we had all retired for the night, I was awakened by a terrible sound. It was coming from the attic room, a horrible moaning scream, absolutely heartbreaking. It tapered off in a sob, then, as though the wind carried it, a whisper trailed down through the house, a woman's name, "Bella."
Dores had also awoken, as had Tomas, and he tried to calm her as she hollered, "This house is haunted, cursed, I tell you!" He loudly agreed with her—anything to get her to stop wailing—and while they shouted at each other I crept to the back door and peered out at the darkened staircase. My renter was coming down it, slowly, with the stumbling, halting gait of a blind man.
And his face…Mãe de Deus, his face…if before, he'd looked like a man in the grip of some awful agony, now he appeared as though his soul had been completely crushed. Utter, absolute hopelessness echoed from his bruised eyes.
Oblivious to me, he lurched across the street, disappearing into the darkness of an alleyway.
The next morning, Dores insisted that the priest come to our house, and she dragged him up to the attic. The little room looked as though nobody had been there for months. There was no trace of my renter, no evidence that he had ever lived in the tiny room.
Then, as the priest said his prayers and swung his incense, I saw it. On the floor, by the narrow balcony, lay a small pile of plastic and metal fragments. Pushing it with my toe, I realized it had been a cell phone, but something had crushed it nearly beyond recognition.
I never saw my renter again. Every year though, on 18 de Março, I say a prayer for him, that his soul might have finally found peace.