Page 92 of The Secret Dinner

“I got your flyer a couple of weeks ago,” I said, searching for some way to identify myself. “At Inhangá.”

“Oh, you live around here?”

“I share an apartment with some friends. And you?”

“Ruth and I … moved here a few months ago. We used to live in Tijuca, but she really likes this area.”

It bothered me, hearing him conjugate his verbs in the present tense when I knew she was dead. The waiter came over and we ordered coffee.

“What can you tell me?” he asked, nervous as a teenager at his first job interview.

“I think I saw your fiancée on Saturday the twenty-fifth,” I lied.

He stared at me, digesting the news, then lowered his head onto the table, wrapped his thin arms around himself, and sobbed. He didn’t ask any more questions, showed no doubt or hesitation. It was like my words had set him free. I listened to his muffled sobs, and if we’d been close, I would have patted him on the head.

I sat there, watching him fall apart in front of me, fueled by false hopes. The waiter brought our drinks and, seeing him in that state, was unsure whether to serve us or keep his distance out of respect. I motioned for him to come over and he left our coffees on the table. A few minutes later, Arthur had composed himself, wiping his cheeks and blowing his nose with a napkin, studying me with puffy red eyes.

“I’m sorry. It’s just, I’ve been handing out flyers for so long, and nobody’s called. The police said that after a week it’s unlikely the person will be found. I’ve been assuming the worst, of course. I called every morgue, every hospital … Nothing. It’s like she never even existed. And now you’re telling me this … Where did you see her?”

“It was right here,” I said, not thinking straight. “This café.”

Arthur had been heaping sugar in his coffee but put the spoon down to take a look around. That café took on a new dimension for him: It was the last place his fiancée had been seen alive. He started crying again, and I wanted to just run away.

“How was she?” he asked, between sniffles.

“I come here a lot. I order a coffee and read, catch up on emails … I saw a woman on the sidewalk. She caught my attention because she was in a hurry. I knew I’d seen her somewhere before, but I only made the connection with the picture on the flyer later. It seemed like too much of a coincidence, so I didn’t call right away.”

“But then you did call…”

“Yes.”

“So it was her,” he concluded, and I realized that Arthur was so fragile, he’d take whatever nonsense I came up with as the absolute truth. “Over these days, I kept thinking the worst. Did she run away, did she leave me? Was she kidnapped, or did she get into an accident and forget her way home?”

“I know how hard it is. I just lost a friend, too.”

“He disappeared?”

“He was murdered.”

We were bonded by our grief.

“My condolences … but I don’t think that’s what happened to Ruth. It would have been in the papers by now. And besides, you saw her here.”

He was clinging to that information with all his might. Each word further revealed his loneliness, his desperation for someone to talk to. I used the opportunity to try to steer the conversation.

“How did you two meet?”

“Ruth was twenty-two, she was about to graduate from college, when she found out she had a degenerative eye disease. Her vision deteriorated quickly, and she went completely blind. Then her dad heard about a new drug they were developing at a lab down in Rio Grande do Sul. It was still in clinical trials, the treatment was risky, they still didn’t know the side effects. He was against it, but Ruth insisted on signing up for the trial. She traveled from Rio, underwent the procedure, and had to go to the lab every day for tests. I was an intern there and it was love at first sight. Ha, well, sight for me, I guess. Maybe that sounds silly, but it’s true. Ruth is strong, brave, curious, funny. She made fun of her own situation, even though we could tell it was hard for her.”

I was so engrossed in the story that I momentarily forgot the whole reason I was there. The flyer didn’t say anything about Ruth being blind.

“Several months later, she was cured,” said Arthur, like a mind reader. “I was the first person Ruth saw when she regained her sight. I was leaning over her, shining a light in her eye, and she just looked at me and smiled, crying tears of joy. We started dating soon after. I left everything behind—my family, my job—and moved to Rio to be with her. I got a job at a pharmaceutical company here, where I still work, while she finished up her degree.”

“What did she do?”

“She works as a journalist.”

It was too late to try to fix the blunder. I continued. “Where?”