Virtuoso

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Face down on the hotel linen, the body. Just one hand drooping off the side of the bed, resting on the bristles of the rose-coloured carpet, fingers spread, glossy nails, raw cuticles, wedding ring in white gold like an eye frozen mid-wink.

The rest of her is emptied flesh, breasts smothered into the bedsheet, pillows crushed against the headboard. Her contorted shoulders a grimace, the back of the knee a gasp, skin already dimming.

This woman is alone.

Her wife has set the bag of lemons down on the coffee table of the hotel suite. She is approaching the closed bedroom door. Hand on the knob, turning. The metal spring jumps and the door is sliding over the flush carpet fibres.

When her wife sees the body – how alone it is – she pounces on top of it.

Outside, the whirling sound of the ambulance. Closer and closer to the hotel. In the bedroom, on the nightstand, the phone hangs off its tight-curl cord, beeping hysterics. The wife is scavenging the body for breath, hair in her mouth, she’s pulling it out. She’s dragging the body down, thump. Millions of rose-coloured bristles. Her hands clam at the sternum. The phone is beeping and she’s thumping the ribcage, and rubber-soled footsteps are nearing. The hotel clerk is young and lean, he steps forward then back, then forward then back, he wants to look, he doesn’t want to look. A heavier pacing behind him, the manager is here now, he says, “Volte agora para baixo” to the kid, Go downstairs now. As the kid is fumbling away, a man and a woman in forest green medical uniforms brush past him. “Go!”, the manager repeats. The kid is going but he keeps looking back. The wife is screaming now: “Por favor! She’s going to die!”

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