THE BOOK OF FOUR

I'm covered now, from head to toe. The truth is that I am inside a morgue and I fear that soon I will have my body open for an autopsy, which makes me colder than those bagged bodies that distill the stench of death infesting the place.

What brought me here was a succession of events which have only one aspect, proceed from the same evil and spread like the tributaries of a river, causing the misfortunes that I will report, both in my life and in the lives of people which had their destinies changed, succumbing to evil.

It all started on an ordinary day, in the winter of 1995. I am a university professor, and incidentally, sorry for not introducing myself properly, my name is Reinaldo Antunes, I teach at AHEI (Arcadina Higher Education Institute). The subject that I try so hard to pass on to my students is philosophy.

A teacher's routine is not easy. They are corrections, revisions, lesson plans and dealing with students every day, knowing the responsibility in their hands, to form minds that in the future will also be teaching, somehow forming opinions with their professions, or basing their own, according to what they learned here, in part with me, is complicated.

Every night, after teaching the classes, I went to a bar, which was close to the university, and I was bored to forget some problems or brood over others, who knows what to drink for anyway? Every drunk has his own excuse. But perhaps no excuse is more justifiable than that of a drunk, you know? Evaluate for yourself the ironies blown by a spokesman for philosophy.

The problem with that bar was that schoolgirls also attended it and some of them were too tempting for my fragile shield of morality to resist. Elaine, Priscila, Aline, Carol, I was losing control of the situation. I buried myself alone and by conviction at the bottom of the well and smelled of the gutter and schoolgirls' vaginas as if they were the sweetest perfumes. Well, I cannot deny the fact in this second case, however when it comes to gutter perhaps not everyone agrees. I left the bar with Aline that night. It was very cold, as if that icy wind brought the atmosphere of Antarctica in freezing breaths. Although well wrapped up, I in a black overcoat and scarf, she in a thick purple wool coat, we blew our hands with warm breath and rubbed them together. We enter that narrow, dark lane that leaves Padre Anchieta street and goes to Dom Hélder Câmara, in the downtown. I always avoided that route, but whether it was due to distraction or the excitement of the conversation, we ended up turning together and getting into it. A spiraling smoke traveled through the air from a marijuana cigarette that was consumed in that corner ahead, to my right. Aline, who was on my left, pulled me by the hand and hugged me, feeling afraid. We stopped, watched, and when we realized that out of the darkness another guy was coming up, with something in his hand that could be a knife or a gun and along with the first one ran to attack us, we ran back the way there and shouted for help. But Aline was falling behind and when one of them caught up with her and threw her against the wall I had to defend her. I was punched by the other guy in my heroic attempt, while I saw Aline being beaten and stolen in front of me. Lying down, huddled, defending myself from kicks and punches, I no longer knew why I continued to be beaten. The guy had robbed me and persisted in hitting me. His partner, who already enjoyed the balance of his "work", shouted calling him until he was finally satisfied and disappeared in the pitch with the other. I got up and for a moment, when I forced the side of the trunk in a bad way, I felt a sharp pain between my ribs, when I saw the blood on my hands and overcoat. I looked at Aline and my hands, puzzled. I didn't know if I would help her or if I would have the strength myself to continue. I decided to go to her and noticed that she didn't move. I started shaking her and calling her by name. Finally, with pats on the face, she was waking up. She was fine, without serious injuries, as I could see, only bruises on his face, from the slaps.

I fell right there lying on my back on the floor. I opened the overcoat and felt the holes. I was stabbed several times . From what I could count, there were six holes in the chest, belly and neck. I blacked out. I woke up in another completely strange place that I don't know how to describe clearly. Confused and naked, completely naked and not feeling cold, nor was I in Arcadina, my city, or any place that I recognized as the real world. My wounds still open and bleeding, but without pain. I got up, walked, looked around. The land covered with undergrowth, large and medium-sized trees with open tops that stretched out in twisted and long branches. As far as I could see, there was no sign of buildings, houses, factories or roads, nor garbage or signs of civilization. After so much walking and almost going crazy, dehydrated and with the red light of the great sun punishing me, I came across a well right in the middle of a clearing and when I reached the edge I just fell, exhausted, totally delivered. That feeling from before came to me now, but in my mouth, in the form of dryness and disgust. The taste of earth and a burp so disgusting and loud that it looked like a grunting pig.

I stepped on the wet, soft, rock bottom and my feet sank. I was sliding down when I felt something hard under the sole of my left foot. Supporting my right foot on my left, I managed to steady myself and started to climb, climbing the stones on the walls. The irregular indentations caused my nails to chip, some were pulled out whole and my fingers were bleeding, from the constant grooves and fissures in the skin. The discrepant settlement of the stones on the other hand helped me to climb the underground construction, even though the tremor and weakness barely made my hands steady in order to rise. Looking up, intending to know how far to go to the edge, I was blinded by the reddish light of that sun, which hit my eyes. Climbing proved difficult, like a viacrucis.

With my abdomen resting on the well's mouth, folded like clothes on the clothesline, I rested, only to collapse on the floor. A book fell on me, flapping its wings like a bird. It was a book and it had life. Perched on the belly, open. I know who I was, I remember everything. But will I never know what the world was and the book? Well, it's another story. I still didn't know anything about him.