Chapter 4
The first sign came from Kiki Dourado’s nostrils.
While Ataíde spoke loudly about his medical history from the end of the table, a trickle of blood ran from Kiki’s nose and dripped onto her plate.
She hurriedly wiped it with the cloth napkin, looked down at the red stain, and somewhere between surprise and embarrassment, said:
“I’m bleeding.”
Nobody paid much attention. “Careless Whisper” was playing in the background.
Ataíde continued on about his personal dramas, and from the center of the table, Umberto praised the artichokes, garnering the other guests’ approval.
At the opposite end of the table from Kiki, Mateus and Maitê had put down their silverware and started whispering, no doubt because one of them was starting to feel sick.
One by one, each voice at the table fell silent, lulled by a dizziness, an unexpected malaise, nausea, and headaches.
“My sister isn’t feeling well,” said Mateus as he tended to Maitê. She was breathing heavily and had broken out in a cold sweat. Her pupils were dilated, and she placed her hands on her stomach.
“Cramps,” Maitê managed to say.
She stuck out her tongue like her mouth was on fire. Umberto shot up shouting for the waiters, demanding water, but no one came. Later, when I went into the kitchen, I found them convulsing in front of the stove next to the bodies of the sous-chefs, who had also tasted the sauce before serving it.
“Dante, get us some water! She’s in pain!” shouted Umberto.
Feeling a jolt in his chest, the old man leaned clumsily against the back of his chair.
Another trickle of blood dropped from Kiki’s other nostril.
Albertina had turned to help her but was overcome by a violent coughing fit, drooling uncontrollably and arching her eyebrows.
She tipped the entire bottle of wine upside down, desperate to get rid of the strange taste that had filled her mouth.
“There are hives on my hands,” she said.
All attention at that moment was focused on Maitê’s contorted face, her chest heaving for air.
Ataíde continued to talk about his ex-wife’s stomach troubles and the great gastroenterologist he knew in S?o Paulo.
Suddenly, mid-sentence, the congressman rested his swollen hands on the table, said “I don’t feel so good,” and vomited half the contents of his stomach.
Nilo Carlos and Gabriel Herméz had gotten up to help Maitê at precisely that moment and were struck by Ataíde’s vomit, soiling their Armani suits.
Maitê fell from her chair, convulsing in spasms on the floor, her hands twisted into claws.
Her teeth began to chatter loudly, like she was seized by hypothermia, and she bit off a piece of her own tongue, which slid from her lips and landed on her pale neck.
Albertina screamed, banging her closed fists on the table and hyperventilating.
She was drooling and her eyes wouldn’t stop watering.
The wine had been no help at all, and I honestly don’t know if she was screaming because of the vomit soaking her dress or because of her neighbor Kiki, who had begun reciting the Our Father in French while blood leaked from her eyes and mouth.
I read later that carbamate acts like a fire inside the body, burning through everything in its path, while warfarin is an efficient anticoagulant, opening the doors for the fire to spread.
A second jet of vomit spewed from Ataíde’s mouth, speckled with little pieces of seagull meat and unchewed artichoke, but this time no one complained, as they had bigger concerns, like breathing.
Maitê lay dead beside her chair. Long-standing partners on multiple bid-rigging schemes and bloated development projects, Nilo and Gabriel struggled for a breath, their gurgling mouths wide open in horror, letting out gravelly screams as their lungs pleaded for air.
The dining room took on an unbearable smell of sewage and run-down hospital.
Ataíde wasn’t the only one vomiting. Albertina also threw up on the table, putting out some of the candles.
At seventy-nine years old, she crawled alongside the chair legs, cursing, leaving a trail of diarrhea in her wake.
Later, the newspapers chose not to mention that the widow to the famed industrialist Péricles Terranova, a lady who was a fixture of Brazilian high society, died shitting herself as she told the whole world to go fuck itself.
I remember standing in the middle of that eye-watering spectacle, marveling at how everyone was using their final breaths to yell over one another.
It was a last-ditch effort to express themselves, to leave behind some record.
Among the coughing, shaking, stifled screams, and asthma attacks, I heard a lot of swearing.
Soninha Klein was the most outspoken at the table.
As she writhed on the floor, the well-known cultural mover and shaker spouted insults she’d possibly only ever used with her household staff.
But she was a strong woman: She managed to get to her feet and stripped off her gold brooches, bracelets, earrings, and necklace, which rolled onto the carpet.
It was as if all that jewelry was suffocating her.
“You cocksucking bastards!” she screamed. “My lungs are burning!”
She ripped off her clothes, starting with her black turtleneck, revealing washboard abs and a hot pink bra concealing her beautiful breasts, the result of two surgical interventions.
“Go fuck yourselves!” She took off her pants, but before she could pull down her underwear, she tripped over an unidentified pool of liquid with a strong sour smell.
Little by little, Soninha’s nervous system came under attack until she could hold on no longer.
The Bee Gees played in the background, singing “How Deep Is Your Love.”
Ataíde continued to deflate like a water balloon.
“What”—vomit—“the hell”—vomit—“is happening?”
“Holy shit, my trip to New York, for fuck’s sake! Fucking feminists!” Soninha continued.
Ataíde stumbled two steps to the kitchen door and said, “Umberto”—vomit—“I think I’m going to”—vomit—“pass out.”
But he didn’t pass out; he puked again. Kiki’s prayer had fallen silent after a few minutes.
Streams of blood ran from her nostrils, eyes, ears, and mouth, like a fountain in a quaint European square.
She died still holding her knife and fork, maintaining that impeccable posture she’d learned at charm school decades before.
She was a high-class lady, even with all those precious jewels painted in viscous crimson.
I don’t know how much time passed before they noticed my presence.
Five, ten minutes, maybe. For me, it felt like an eternity.
Later, I tried to time out the night using the songs: I remember hearing Mariah Carey’s “Dreamlover,” Rihanna’s “Love on the Brain,” and Taylor Swift’s “Love Story,” but it was like the seconds had been stretched out to maximize the guests’ pain.
I watched everything from the foyer with enormous satisfaction, until Mateus moved away from his sister’s body to glare at me, brimming with rage.
Umberto was curled up on the floor like a baby, his swollen belly nearly bursting his buttons.
He was choking on his own blood. Heckel was turning purple, especially his lips, fingers, and ears—I later learned this was called cyanosis—and he crawled along, veins bulging on his forehead and eyes wide beneath his thick-framed glasses.
“You fucking cunt, goddamnit!” Soninha tried to scream, her voice raw. “Faggots! Commie faggots!”
And Ataíde:
“Who”—vomit—“did this?”
Mateus came at me, made a fist, and punched me. I fell to the ground, caught by surprise. I got a kick to the face as I tried to fight back. How is he still standing? I thought. Only then did I remember that Mateus had ordered his meat without gravy. He hadn’t been poisoned. Fuck!
I grabbed his right leg to gain some leverage, then tried to pull myself up by the waistband of his pants but fell back to the ground.
I looked over my shoulder and saw Umberto holding on to my foot.
With his last bit of strength, the old man was crawling toward me and gurgling something I couldn’t make out.
His mouth was full of blood, and his eyes no longer belonged to this world.
“It was you!”
“You fucking traitorous faggot!”
Suddenly Soninha, Heckel, and Ataíde were all advancing toward me, spitting out their guts like zombies.
A breathless Umberto kept hold of my ankle.
Mateus managed to regain control and slammed me in the head until I fell again, face to the ground.
I flexed my arms to press up against their kicking and punching, but it was too late.
They were already on top of me like feasting vultures.
My blood-soaked tuxedo stuck to the marble floor.
I felt someone biting my leg and Soninha sank her teeth into my ear, tearing off a good chunk of my earlobe.
I howled in pain, paralyzed. Ataíde’s thousandth spew of vomit landed straight in my face.
It tasted like the sewer. I was dizzy, I grew tired of fighting and let myself be devoured by cannibals in formal dress.
Then, over the sound of Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely,” I heard the roar of a motor.
Isn’t she lovely? Vroommmm, vroommmm, vroommmm.
Isn’t she precious? Vroommmm, vroommmm, vroommmm.
I kept my eyes closed, certain the noise had been invented by my already-failing mind.
But it came closer, and suddenly the beating stopped.
I no longer felt their weight on top of me.
Confused, I turned just in time to watch Arthur slicing up Mateus with Cora’s yellow chainsaw.
The country singer’s organs leapt from his body like chunks of fruit flying from a lidless blender.