Feeling guilty, but still strongly impressed by her lover's act, something she could never have expected from him, she took a book she had been working on out of her bag, revising it for a future reprint.

     Crime in two acts. That was her first book, an independent production, written quinze years ago. I had recovered the copy in a second-hand bookshop, since I didn't own any more. She picked it up because, coincidentally, the book was about an act of rape. Before starting the revision, she couldn't even remember the details of the story, but there was one passage in particular that had been striking and that was the one she was now looking for in the text, almost in a masochistic feeling. The character in question was called Célio and, in one of the scenes, he raped his wife, Helena. Célio would end up with a tragic prison sentence, since Patrícia despised rape under any pretext, not only for the obvious reasons, but also because she had been the victim of one. Then, the character got into trouble. Rape could not be condoned, nor justified, it could not even be forgiven, she said in the book.

     'According to Carlos, there was no rape. Despite this, can the fact that he killed Ema with such a brutal act not be considered as outrageous as rape? Does the fact that there was no sexual violence mitigate the crime?' she thought.

     The truth was that, since the day before, she had been trying to find something to justify going ahead with all that foolishness. She thought about his money, but was it worth it? She remembered the song by Tom Jobim that the pianist had played in the piano bar at Magallanes the night before:

Ah, foolishness, what have you done?
Such a reckless heart
You made me cry from pain your love
Such a delicate love

Ah, why were you so weak that way?
In such a soulless way
Ah, my heart
That never loved doesn't deserve to be loved

Go on, my heart
Listen to reason use only sincerity
He who sows wind
Always reaps storms¹

     For now, the justification she had chosen was that, after everything, there was really no other choice but to carry on.

     'Freedom of choice, there always is!' the conscience told her. 'But his act was thoughtless, wasn't it? A rape never is. Rape is always premeditated, even though there may be a tiny amount of time between the decision and the action.'

     The scene described in her book so long ago was still playing on her mind. She read it again: 'Célio pushed his wife onto the bed, unbuckled his belt and pulled down his pants, while Helena, helpless and immobile, paralyzed with fear, waited for the worst. He then lay on top of her, ripping her dress open and brutally tearing off her underwear. She let out a scream, which he stopped with one of his big, strong hands. She could barely breathe, Célio blocked her mouth and nose while he abused her, like an animal on its prey'.

     Rereading the scene made her snap! She went back in time to the previous afternoon, when she had been examining Ema's body at the inn. She muttered:

     "The mark on her lips..."

     A terrible suspicion hovered in her mind. She repeated:

     "The purple on Ema's lips... Could it be? No, it's not possible!"

     But considering what had just happened there, in other words, what Carlos had intended to do, yes, it was entirely possible. When he returned, she suddenly asked:

     "Carlos, you forced Ema to have sex?"

     His surprise was clear, like someone who has been caught red-handed and can't hide it. Their cheeks blushed. Patrícia was intelligent and knew how to observe the body's signals. The subsequent lowering of the head, the averted eyes, the slight hesitation. Everything seemed to say that he had raped his wife! And she hadn't used the word rape, and his reaction was as if she had.

     "Where did you get this idea from?"

     "You were about to do that to me, weren't you?"

     "Patrícia, stop talking nonsense. For God's sake, don't sweat the small stuff!"

     He was strangely and accusingly hesitant:

     "Look, I'm sorry... I know I was doing the wrong thing, but if you think about it, everything we're doing together is pretty awful, too."

     Patrícia was indignant at his relativization:

     "Are you looking for a justification? You want to relativize the act of rape? Maybe you even want to romanticize it, who knows? There are things for which there is no justification."

     "It was the whisky."

     "Don't try to justify it. Alcohol only makes it easier for us to bring out what we already are."

     He was winding himself up and decided to find a way to escape. He took a towel to wipe his face and part of his hair. The fact that he had gone to the bathroom to splash water on his head in order to cool it down seemed to show all his guilt. It had also been a futile attempt to wake up from the effects of alcohol. He said, a little awkwardly:

     "I think we'd better go to dinner."

     Patrícia was devastated. She felt certain that the bruise on Ema's lips had nothing to do with the slap on her face. And Carlos was about to do to her what he had already done to his wife. He had backed down at the 'zero hour' moment, but he would do it someday. It would only be a matter of time. For a moment, he thought about giving up, going to the superintendent and telling him everything. In another, he felt disgusted and wanted to kill him!

     "Just go dinner then. I'll be there in a moment."

     Even though she knew that she was also in trouble and therefore needed to maintain her emotional balance, she felt overwhelmed by very strong emotions. She didn't know if she could stay as cold as the region of the planet they were in.
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¹Victoria Broadus' adaptation of the lyrics "Insensatez" into English. The lyrics are also available on the lyricalbrazil website.