1.
Matteo—yes, Matteo himself—rang the bell of the building. From above, a young female voice.
‘I came because of the ad’ said Matteo.
He had left a three-day-old newspaper at home, on the table, on top of several month-old newspapers.
On the cover of one of the newspapers is the photograph of a machine emitting smoke. An explosion, an attempt, he no longer remembers.
Matteo’s wife screamed because of something that happened in the kitchen, or in the world. She screamed and at the same time she called for silence. Matteo didn’t answer. Two chairs for the children and a small yellow bicycle that had not been used in months. The back tire was flat, and the bell was missing.
But now Matteo is in front of the door on the second floor, as described in the newspaper ad.
He advances, prepared. But he doesn’t really know what for.
The woman who placed the ad opens the door. The first shock. The woman has no arms. Matteo says nothing, what is there to say?
He tries to look everywhere but at that woman, as if he was investigating the house. It’s no use. It’s just fear.
The woman’s face seems to have a life of its own, it is even too nice, as if the rest of her body existed merely to support the face, from which nothing comes out, not even a sound—which forces Matteo, still shaking, to say:
‘I didn’t understand the ad.’
The ad asked for someone to assist a young lady in various activities.
‘It might seem ridiculous’, she said, ‘but when it’s raining...’ And there was silence.
‘Before’, she continued, ‘I had an older woman come to help me.’ And there was silence again.
‘Do you accept?’ she asks.
2.
It’s raining, and Matteo holds a large umbrella for two. Anna’s body is only a few centimeters from Matteo’s. He trembles. They are too close. He already feels the heat of her body, and he doesn’t like it.
Anna is thirty-two years old, a beautiful face. In another situation, if the world was different, Matteo would have been radiant at that moment, to be walking with a woman with a face like that. He couldn’t remember ever having walked beside a face like that.
Matteo was still holding the umbrella, even though it was not really raining anymore. Under Anna’s guidance the two of them arrived at the door of a building. With his left hand holding the handle, Matteo used his right hand to pull down the top of the umbrella, closing it. Now holding the umbrella in his right hand, he opened the door of the building with the other.
‘Please, come in.’
Anna had to tend to some things and Matteo’s presence was indispensable.
Now they are on one of the upper floors, already sitting in front of an employee who, given the circumstances, was being so overly nice that all his good intentions came crashing somewhere on the floor, wasted. Someone was going to sweep them up and they wouldn’t be good for anyone else.
Observing this excess of delicate manners, Matteo felt like hitting the man.
Anna asked if it was possible, and it was. Then, Matteo, according to the protocol they had prepared to that effect, signed a document on behalf of Anna.
(...)
4.
The chimp who belonged to Guzi the cobbler had always entertained Matteo, but that day it was beginning to annoy him. After locking the doors, Guzi had let him loose, and the monkey was on Matteo’s back, kissing him or trying to, clinging to him with those two agile monkey arms, arms that can do so much so quickly that any human worker ought to respect them. The monkey—that was what Guzi called him—had both arms around Matteo’s neck, and with those long black fingers, searched for tiny somethings in his human head. Then he screamed and jumped around the room. (When he’s happy he doesn’t stop; he jumps from the table to the wall to the ceiling—as if he were in a circus.)
‘Stop, monkey’ says Guzi, the owner. But the monkey doesn’t stop. Meanwhile, Matteo has been there for hours, and not a single client has showed up for Guzi.
‘It’s amazing’ says Guzi. ‘Not a single person. People don’t walk anymore, they just stand still. Nobody buys anything, but at least they could walk from one side to another. Last week I repaired two pairs of shoes. Do you know what will come out of this? I’m going to have to eat the monkey. Some day I’ll eat the monkey.’
What worries Matteo is that something is decomposing quickly in the room of his friend Guzi. Matteo had been three weeks ago, and now it was much worse.
‘The landlord says he’ll shoot me and I told him that I’ll give him the monkey when I’m six months late. It’s worth six months. I only owe him five months. I have one more month. Or else, I’ll eat the monkey. I’m beginning to get hungry.’
Matteo goes on to say that in many countries they eat monkeys and that the meat is good. The monkey seems to realize that they’re talking about him and keeps running from one side to the other. He realizes that they’re talking about him, but he doesn’t understand that—albeit in jest—they’re talking about eating him. The monkey is happy and Matteo feels sorry for him. He also feels sorry for Guzi and for himself.
‘You’ve been working that job for four months, and you haven’t gotten used to it yet?’ Matteo doesn’t answer. He just nods. ‘No one gets used to that’ he says to his friend Guzi.
5.
Again the same question and a nod of the head.
‘Nobody gets used to that.’
Matteo had just arrived and was shaking. He said he was going to leave the job, which he couldn’t take anymore. Carla, Matteo’s wife, had been straightforward: we need the money.
That same afternoon, for the first time, it happened. Obviously, Matteo didn’t tell his wife about it. He simply said he wanted to leave the job, which he couldn’t take anymore.
In the afternoon, Anna had invited Matteo to sit next to her and watch television. Matteo, as usual, walked towards the television and turned it on with his right index finger. He left the room for a few minutes, then came back. On the screen, a woman was lying in bed kissing a man’s testicles. Matteo stood motionless at the entrance of the room. He didn’t say a word. Anna was still on the couch looking at Matteo. Red-faced, her eyes fixed, she asked if he wanted to sit down. Matteo didn’t move. I have to go, he said.
6.
It must have been weeks since he visited Guzi. Matteo was horrified. The door to the street was closed, and Matteo thought that was absurd. How did he expect to draw customers?
Then he entered and stopped, without reacting. Guzi had grown a huge beard and he looked terrible. He found the monkey motionless beside him, and when Matteo entered, unlike he would usually do, the monkey didn’t move. The monkey was thinner, Guzi was thinner.
‘I’m about to eat the monkey’ said Guzi.
The monkey might have realized that they were talking about him, but he didn’t move. He looked sad.
There was a bad smell and Matteo noticed that in the corners of the room, there was urine.
‘The landlord let me stay. He said that nobody else wants this joint. A good guy. Anyways, it don’t solve nothing. You can’t eat the walls.’
‘The monkey is sick’ Matteo said.
‘The monkey is hungry’ Guzi replied.
‘Now he’s quiet and still, but certain times of day, he must remember his eating schedules... he begins jumping around and scratching me. He’s already attacked me’
Guzi is sitting in front of his work table, patching some boots.
‘I’ll resolve several problems. I’m going to eat the monkey’ said Guzi.
7.
Anna is on top of Matteo and her hips twist in a self-determined rhythm. Matteo is on the chair in the living room, facing the screen, sometimes looking at it, and his penis is as hard as he ever thought it could be. He grabs Anna’s hips, with both hands, tracking her movements, and trying not to think about anything else, trying above all not to look up, his eyes fixed—if anything—on her face and sometimes—to avoid looking at it—on the arms that aren’t there. Turning his head away slightly he sees two penises on the screen and a mouth that is moving from one to the other.
8.
When his wife embraces him, Matteo begins shaking. His wife’s arms around his body repulse him. For many months, Matteo was avoiding his wife Carla, but at the same time, sometimes in the kitchen or in living room, he would admire her hands, the way they moved or carried objects from one place to another. Like a magic trick: pick up a plate, take it off the shelf and put it on a table.
He had only lost control once. Upon leaving Anna’s house after his shift, about a block away, he encountered a friend he hadn’t seen in a long time and, with instinctive joy, he reached out for his hand. It was after feeling its cool touch that Matteo suddenly fell apart and had to lower his head so that his friend wouldn’t notice.
When at home, Matteo felt something strange, as if there existed two parallel worlds, and as if his job wasn’t human, but something else. He watched his children, sometimes played games with them that involved manipulating small objects. On such occasions, he felt like he was falsifying something, as if, in one way or another—in that house or at work dealing with Anna—he was playing a part. During the week he spent about ten hours a day with Anna—and what he earned justified those hours. But after work the return to the world was disturbing. Outside of Anna’s house everything was kind of muddled. He didn’t know where to put his arms, they seemed useless, he thought he could throw them away.
‘Guzi is going crazy’ Matteo said to his wife. ‘He says he’s going to eat the monkey.’
9.
He rang the bell. It was a man’s voice. Matteo suddenly relieved. He was unemployed again. He went up.
The door opened electrically. Matteo entered. The man was about thirty years old, more or less his own age. He was wearing a t-shirt. Matteo was disgusted. But this time the impression was not as strong. The stumps were in sight, but Matteo made an effort not to look.
‘There are a number of things that I need help with’ said the man.
Matteo nodded his head.
10.
Matteo slams the door of his house. He’s furious. He wants to avoid yet another discussion. Holding it with one arm, he takes out the bicycle. It no longer works and none of the children uses it. His wife insisted he throw it in the trash. Nobody will buy it, it only takes space.
Matteo quit his second job five months ago and he hasn’t found another one.
He throws the bike on top of a pile of waste and watches. Immediately, an old woman approaches, and tries to figure out how she could use it.
He’s furious with his wife, with the screams that won’t stop in the house, however, he tries to control himself.
Three days ago he was with Guzi and the situation was critical. The monkey wouldn’t budge. He was on the verge of dying, and Guzi had defecated in front of him, in the corner. The bathroom no longer worked.
Matteo could not remain more than a few minutes inside.
In any case he could only talk, and that didn’t help. He didn’t have any money. It is useless to go, he thinks, but he goes.
Eight in the morning. He has to break into the shop. There is no response and no noise. He breaks into the shop. Immediately he sees Guzi’s torn shoes, then Guzi, a little higher, swinging. The smell is death, there are feces and urine everywhere. Matteo screams and opens the door of the small annex. The monkey is there.
11.
With both hands holding something wrapped in plastic, Matteo advances determinedly. With that package he must cross one of the busiest streets of the city. He enters the subway. Then gets out and passes through a roundabout where, earlier, there had been a serious accident.
As if carrying a small child or an animal to eat at a party, Matteo holds the package, already feeling pain in his muscles for keeping his arms bent and tense.
People smell the odor, distancing themselves. Matteo gets off at Feira Station, and with both hands cradling the wrapped package, he goes all the way up the stairs of the subway to the top. Seeing again the light of day, he breathes, relieved.
(...)