Once again Richard found himself excluded from the female world where his wife was languishing. He could not even get near her to try to explain what had happened and beg for forgiveness, even though forgiveness was impossible. Although no one accused him of it to his face, he was treated like a murderer. And that was exactly how he felt. He lived alone in his house while the Farinha family kept Anita with them. They’ve kidnapped her, he would tell his friend Horacio whenever he called from New York. To his father though, who also called regularly, he never confessed what a disaster his life had become. Instead he reassured him with an optimistic version according to which he and Anita, with help from a psychiatrist and the family, were getting over their grief. Joseph knew that Bibi had died after being run over but did not suspect it was Richard who had been driving the car.
The maid who had previously done the cleaning and looked after Bibi left on the day of the accident and never returned, not even to claim her wages. Garota also vanished, partly because Richard could no longer buy the drinks, and partly out of a superstitious fear: she thought that Richard’s tragedies were the result of a curse and that usually this was contagious. Meanwhile, the mess around Richard grew and grew. Rows of empty bottles littered the floor; in the fridge produce that had lost its original identity became covered with green mold, while dirty clothes seemed to multiply as if by magic. His unkempt appearance scared off his English pupils, who quickly stopped coming. For the first time, he found himself without funds; the rest of Anita’s savings had gone to pay the clinic. He began drinking cheap rum at home on his own because he owed money at the bar. He spent his time sprawled in front of the television, which was never switched off, trying to avoid silence and darkness, where his children’s transparent presence would float on the air. At the age of thirty-five he considered himself half-dead: he had already lived half his life and the other half was of no interest to him.
IT WAS DURING THIS DESPERATE PERIOD that Horacio, by now the director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, decided to devote more attention to Brazil and coincidentally offer Richard a helping hand. They had been friends since their bachelor days, when Horacio was just setting out on his academic career and Richard was writing his doctoral thesis. Back then, Horacio had gone to visit him in Rio de Janeiro, where his friend received him with such generous hospitality despite his meager student budget that he stayed for two months. They took their backpacks and traveled to the state of Mato Grosso to explore the Amazon rain forest, forming one of those male friendships that has nothing sentimental about it but proves immune to distance and time. Later on, Horacio again visited Rio to be the best man at Richard and Anita’s wedding. They did not see much of each other over the following years, but their mutual affection was safely stored in their memories. They knew they could count on each other. When he heard what had happened to Pablo and Bibi, Horacio started calling his friend a couple of times a week to try to raise his spirits. Over the phone, Richard’s voice was unrecognizable. He slurred his words and repeated himself with the mindless insistence of a drunkard. Horacio understood Richard needed as much help as Anita.
Horacio was the one who told Richard about the vacant post at the university even before it appeared in the relevant journals, advising him to apply right away. The competition for the job would be intense, and he could not help him with that, but if Richard got through the necessary steps and had luck on his side, he might end up at the top of the list. His doctoral thesis was still referred to, and that was a point in his favor, as were the articles he had published. But since then more time had gone by than was customary; Richard had wasted years of his professional career lying about on the beach and drinking caipirinhas. He sent in his application without much hope, but to his great surprise two weeks later a letter arrived summoning him for an interview in April. Horacio had to send him the money for the airfare to New York. Richard prepared for the journey without telling Anita, who was still in the German clinic at the time, and convinced himself he was not doing this for selfish reasons. If he was offered the post, Anita would be much better looked after in the United States, where she could rely on the university’s health insurance to cover her care. Besides, the only way to reclaim her as his wife was to rescue her from the clutches of the Farinha family.
Following an exhaustive interview process, Richard was offered a university contract starting in August. He calculated there was time enough for Anita to get better and to organize their move. In the meantime he had to ask Horacio for another loan to take care of all the necessary expenses. He promised to pay him back out of the proceeds from the sale of the house, provided Anita agreed, as the property was in her name.
Thanks to his family fortune, Horacio Amado-Castro had never lacked money. At the age of seventy-six, his father still exercised a patriarchal tyranny from Argentina in the same steely manner as ever, although he was resigned to the misfortune that one of his sons had married a Protestant Yankee and two of his grandchildren did not speak Spanish. He visited them in New York several times a year, refreshing his vast love of culture with outings to museums, concerts, and the theater, as well as supervising his investments in several banks there. His daughter-in-law detested him but treated him with the same hypocritical politeness as he did her. For years the patriarch had wanted to buy a house that would do Horacio proud. The cramped Manhattan apartment where the family lived, on the tenth floor in a development of twenty identical redbrick buildings, was a hovel unworthy of a son of his. As soon as he was in his grave, Horacio would of course come into his share of his fortune, but everyone in the family went on to a ripe old age and he personally intended to live to be a hundred. It was stupid for Horacio to wait until then to live a comfortable life when he could do so beforehand, his father would say, clearing his throat and puffing on one of his Cuban cigars. “I don’t want to owe anything to your father. He’s a despot and he hates me,” said the Protestant Yankee, and Horacio did not dare contradict her. Eventually though, the old man found a way to convince his stubborn daughter-in-law. One day he arrived with an adorable little dog for his grandchildren, a ball of fluff with sweet eyes. They called her Fifi, little imagining that the name would soon be far too small for her. She was a Canadian Eskimo, a sled dog that grew to weigh over a hundred pounds. Realizing it would be impossible to deprive the children of her, his daughter-in-law gave in and the grandfather made out a substantial check. Horacio looked for a house with a yard for Fifi near Manhattan, and ended up buying a brownstone in Brooklyn shortly before his friend Richard Bowmaster arrived to work at NYU.