The Fugitivities, стр. 55
The first blow came in the ribs. Barthes was screaming. Two more blows came to the shoulder, the jaw. Octavio was kicking, trying to stomp the shit out of Jonah and hold off Barthes at the same time. He managed to roll away and get up. Barthes was screaming at both of them. With the towel in one hand, Jonah was trying to reason with Octavio, insisting that they take it outside. But now Octavio had turned on Barthes and was all in her face. When she refused to answer him, he tried to slap her, but she anticipated it and blocked the blow. That got Jonah back in the melee, the two struggling in a wrestling hold. Barthes joined in, kicking at them as she screamed in the center of her tiny flat, “GET OUT! The both of you! Just get out of my LIFE!”
They gave up the struggle, exhausted, and looked up dazed at Barthes, who was still trembling with rage.
“The two of you. Spoiled brats, two pathetic kids so full of themselves you don’t even see what’s going on around you. You’re an egomaniac, Octavio. And Jonah, Jesus, you’re a loser—all you do is follow him around. What are you even doing, like, with your life, other than being mopey, acting cool and shit? You’re insane. Both of you. Why did you even come here? I never asked you to come. I never asked you to visit. I never called for you to come down here and just take over my life. I’ve been making a life, my own life down here! I’ve been trying to accomplish something. Which is more than either of you ever could imagine doing for anyone!”
There was a pause. Barthes pushed her way between them and threw Octavio’s arm violently away when he reached for her as she passed. She had moved to the window, and she threw it open. The sounds of light traffic, birds chirping, and children playing flooded in with the fresh air. Her tears started to flow, which they could see made her angrier. She wiped them away before turning back to face the two still standing motionless and mute, as though waiting for her further scolding. She steadied herself.
“Do you know I made a website for the kids in my classroom so they can share their art with the world? Do you? Do either of you have any idea what it is I even do? Do you even care? Christ, you could at least have pretended to care! I learned Portuguese. I made friends, and guess what? I’ve had plenty of lovers. All of them better-mannered, better in bed, better than either of you. God. Get over yourselves. You hear me? Get over yourselves; in fact, get out of my apartment!”
At this last, Barthes crumpled down in a corner, heaving. Octavio, ignoring her command, kneeled down beside her, trying to give her his hand. She pushed him away.
“No…it’s over. I’m sorry, but it’s over. I’m leaving,” she said. “I’m leaving you and I’m leaving Rio.”
“Pero no me puedes dejar así. Mi amor. No seas así,” Octavio was saying.
“No…no, no. I can’t. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to do this. Anymore. I’m leaving.”
“But I love you,” Octavio said, now in English.
“I don’t,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I did, I did at one point, actually, at several points…but I don’t anymore. I don’t know when it happened, please don’t ask when…or why…I don’t think…I don’t think that would be a productive conversation.”
Barthes got up and went over to her laptop. She opened a few windows on the screen and then began typing. Jonah looked at Octavio who had rolled over onto the floor with his back against the wall, his hair falling over his reddened eyes. His face was pathetic. He could not compose himself. There was a menacing sense of cruelty in the air.
“You know, I was just considering not even telling you, but you might as well know. Taìs died last night,” Barthes said, without turning away from her screen. “I watched her vital signs go flat. Her whole family was there, watching. There wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do. I’ve never heard…I never heard anyone scream like that. She was eleven. The NGO people think it was a drug soldier who did it…possibly unintentionally. Either way, it doesn’t matter now. They’re probably gonna torch the guy they think did it in a pile of tires up in the favela. That’s what I’ve been dealing with. That’s how things work around here.”
There was nothing to say. The little ball of life from the soccer game, from their walk up through the crooked streets, who was an entire world of joy in the present and full of promise for the future, was going to be buried before her twelfth birthday while they lived on. Felled for no reason, for no purpose or motive other than the fact of exposure. The misfortune of having being born in a time and place where the risks to her life were infinitely and unfairly grave, even compared to that of some other girl living in a doorman building within spitting distance from the favela Taìs had called home, who might at that very moment be watching a popular movie about the elite squads fighting the drug wars or playing with friends in her private pool.
They had no standing to give Barthes comfort, certainly not to attend the funeral. They were strangers passing through, and they had outworn their welcome. Suddenly, Barthes was banging on the hard plastic of her keyboard.
“I have to get out of here…goddammit, I have to get out of here…Shit. Shit. Shit. I’m leaving. Don’t you get it? I hate you, both of you! You bastards! I’m leaving.”
Two