Page 79 of An Immaculate Deception

Mother continues: She saw the girl in the photographs unconscious at Doctor Lobo’s house, in a dark chamber, in a ritual sacrifice.

Doctor Lobo is saying something about Mother being a danger to herself and others. I can hardly hear him. He said that he would dismiss Joaquina. I never saw the girl after that night. He made me promise never to seek her out or speak of her again. Was it because he planned to kill her?

Doctor Lobo continues, “Do you remember my one instruction? I said that Madalena was to avoid distressing situations. Madalena, we just need you to calm down. That is all. We are only going to evaluate you.”

“Leandro, do something!” Mother screams. “They are going to kill us!”

Us? I look at Doctor Lobo.

“Do you see how deep her hysteria is?” Doctor Lobo says calmly. “She thinks we are going to kill her. This is, sadly, not uncommon in patients like this.”

Doctor Lobo flicks his syringe and says he must sedate her.

He’s taking charge of her. He did not ask me for my permission to do any of this to her. He did not even ask me for my opinion. He doesn’t care what I think.

Mother begs me to help. Her strained voice aches with despair. She’s so frightened. Tears stream down her cheeks.

My right hand twitches.

He jabs the needle into her arm. Her eyelids start drooping.

Her eyes close and she slumps forward. Her shoulders hunch and her hair falls over her face. Her head is limp. She’s unconscious. Again. He’s making her go to sleep again, after all the trouble we went through to wake her up.

The ringing in my ears starts up again.

They took Mother to the same guest room as before, the one closest to the stairs. At this point I think Lobo neither knows nor cares which room is her actual room.

Doctor Lobo instructs me to gather hot water, a warm compress, and gauze to clean up her scrapes and bruises. While I’m in the kitchen, I send Maria das Dores away. Doctor Lobo says that Mother will wake up in a couple hours.

I hear them moving upstairs, their voices low. The masked man, there’s something threatening about him. There’s two of them and one of me.

I go up to the room, carrying the warm compress, hot water, and gauze. I slow as I approach the door. I listen.

“Nothing to be concerned about,” Doctor Lobo says, unperturbed.

“The boy knows!”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“What do you mean?”

“He doesn’t care about the dead girl. He cares about…”

Silence. In the distance, the clock ticks on the wall downstairs.

Doctor Lobo’s voice comes again, louder than before: “Come in, Leandro.”

I hesitate for a moment, then I go inside. I hand him the warm rag and the water and the gauze. He thanks me and sets them on the nightstand beside the bed. The curtains are drawn. Mother slumbers as before, face up toward the ceiling, eyes closed. Arms resting carefully at her sides. The gray walls close in on me. I am taken back to the weeks I spent alone in the house with Mother slumbering, before the police inspector came, before Joaquina came, before Doctor Lobo came.

The masked man stares at me like a hound, his posture slightly hunched.

“Have a seat.” Doctor Lobo motions to the rocking chair in the corner of the room.

48

The room is enveloped in gray shadows even though it’s still midday. I take a seat in the rocking chair.

“This must all be confusing for you,” Lobo says. “Allow me to explain. Fundamentally, you understand that there is a cost to everything in life. There is an inherent balance of all things in the universe. When something is out of balance, it must be returned to a state of harmony. For something to be given, something of equal value must be taken away.”