Page 27 of An Immaculate Deception

I know I’m right. He said that he’s been here for only six months, but what if he lied about that? Maybe six months ago is when she died.

“Did she die here?” I ask.

He regards me. He is present, understanding. My question broke through to him, and I sense that I am on the right track, that perhaps I will finally have an answer.

Just then, trotting horses usher a carriage into the driveway. Doctor Lobo has arrived. Heavens, Doctor Lobo, not now. I’m so close to having a breakthrough with Leandro.

“I just want to be seen…” Leandro says, once again focused on the window. “Just once before the end.”

A cold feeling grips my bones. “What end?”

He doesn’t respond.

“Leandro,” I press. “What do you mean by ‘the end’?”

There comes a loud knock at the door, three in a row. Leandro startles, steps around me, and heads to the foyer.

Leandro sits beside me at dinner, mute and dead eyed. He’s too drunk to maintain a conversation anyway, I suppose. He put only a sliver of steak on his plate and a meager portion of farofa. He reminds me of the inscription at the entrance of Hell in the Inferno: Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

I’m still rattled by his disturbing words. All this talk about the end. There’s a dark cloud around him. Is it just the alcohol that caused his mental state to deteriorate so much since this afternoon? Or is something else going on?

The end. God, is he planning to do something terrible? In the middle ring of the seventh circle of Hell, souls guilty of committing suicide inhabit trees and are fed upon by harpies. They destroyed their physical bodies in life, and thus in Hell they lack bodies of their own.

I shudder. I must not jump to conclusions. I try to conjure memories of us at the São João festival, and even before that, the day we spent at the circus, how happy Leandro was then. Surely he’s not thinking of doing anything so dire.

Doctor Lobo, either oblivious to or unconcerned about Leandro’s mental state, carries on with his grandiose manner. Passes the salt, pours pepper over the carne de sol. And did I tell you about the marvelous cafés in Vienna? Oh, thank you very much, I shall have some more macaxeira. How I love Maria das Dores’s boiled yucca, have you tried some?

“You’re barely eating, Leandro.” I motion to his plate with only a sliver of steak and a small portion of farofa on it.

Leandro side-eyes me, then spoons a small serving of yucca onto his plate without a word. I sense he is only doing it to silence me. He could be so much nicer about it. He is so entirely unpleasant with me, as though I’ve done something to upset him, when this whole time he is the one who’s been upsetting me, lacking the minimum grace owed to a guest, let alone one’s beloved.

“You know what they say,” Doctor Lobo begins with a smile, “one must eat breakfast as a king, lunch as a prince, and dinner as a beggar. That is the secret to preventing nighttime indigestion.”

“I suppose.” I shrug. His disregard for Leandro’s nonsense is truly remarkable. If I were to voice my misgivings about Leandro again, Doctor Lobo would dismiss them. (It’s only been two days, trauma is very hard on the nerves, and after all, you’re not yourself yet, either. How have your emotional fluctuations been of late?)

He infuriates me, this doctor, yet also charms me at the same time. When he turns his piercing gaze in my direction, I feel strangely healed. Not only healed, but whole. I feel beautiful.

I look away from him. I must avoid these feelings, for they lead to the place of no return. The gray whirlwinds of the second circle of Hell fill my mind, Francesca and her lover, Paolo, spinning uncontrollably for all of eternity.

I turn my attention to Leandro, with whom I have the opposite problem. He used to charm me, and now he does not. His hand rests on the table beside his plate, so pale and fragile. So unlike Doctor Lobo’s strong hands. It stirs up an uncanny feeling within me. I’m suddenly seized by a strong mix of emotions, a suffocating desire to at once love and punish him, and I seize his wrist.

He whips his head around to face me.

“Those who wreak strife upon others in life”—I fix my eyes on his—“simmer in a river of blood at the bank of the alpine crag, in the upper ring of the seventh circle of Hell. They stew in a shore of boiling vermilion, these shades. So take care how you tread in this world, Leandro.”

The table falls silent. I’m still holding Leandro’s wrist.

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Leandro says.

His tone is flat, devoid of any trace of anger, but his eyes bore into mine and a ripple of defiant pleasure shoots through me. Then the heavy feeling lifts, and I let go of his hand. My cheeks burn with shame for the way I spoke to him, for the way he spoke to me, for the secret pleasure I took in the interaction, and because I know Doctor Lobo will tsk-tsk me. A textbook case of hysteria, he’ll say. Mother would chastise me for it as well. (How can you speak to him that way? He’ll never marry you now.)

But I’m not wrong to admonish him. Leandro’s sullen demeanor, his inebriation, his lack of attention to his guests, his lies about renovations, all of it is wayward, and that is assuming him innocent of the other, more significant transgressions that may have occurred. It all cannot go unacknowledged. It is about justice, and punishment is an essential part of God’s love. Leandro should know better.

“I’ve decided to return home after dinner,” I announce, softening my tone. Now is as good a time as any. “I truly thank you for your kindness in opening this wonderful home to me, but I am feeling much better.” I repeat the same lie I told before. “And Mother must be worried sick.” I turn to Doctor Lobo. “I was thinking you could give me a ride home, Doctor?”

Both men stop chewing. Leandro stares at me as though I’ve announced I will murder everyone tonight. Doctor Lobo’s expression is inscrutable. In the background, the seconds tick on the wall clock.

I have this peculiar feeling that maybe they don’t want me to leave.