White Squad. Annalu Braga

stuff finishes us up. My husband is there.

      – My friend too, Junior.

      Rosa straightens her hair in a bun. She puts on her “Hollywood star fleeing the paparazzi” glasses, but she can´t hide her distress.

      – My friend went for routine exams. He's been my friend since I was a kid, when we played in high school. But what happened to your husband?

      – Car accident. In fact, he was hit by a madman in the BR highway. We ran out of gas, he was pushing our car on the road and ... Don't even remind me.

      – You´re nervous...

      – It is true, possibly the effect of PMS together with remorse. I don't know, lately I've been out of my Earth address.

      – Look, believe me. Everything will work out fine.

      Rosa says goodbye and leaves, closing the toilet door carefully, ever so lightly like feathers. Roberta washes her face in search of immediate relief as if there could be an island of peace.

      Tati looks for a spot in the restaurant to talk to her boyfriend on the cell phone. Ronaldo's voice is calm and rhythmic, which conveys his usual security, but she avoids lingering and looks around for her mother. Ronaldo insists on taking a company jet to Santos Dumont in Rio, but his girlfriend is tough. Controls herself all the time, but there is no more climate for both.

      Roberta arrives and Tati hangs up the phone. Random affairs and denial are the artifices most used at this time.

      – It was my editor on the phone, next week, the story is mine. – She conceals easily.

      – You are so good at what you do, will they give you credit for the article this time?

      – It depends on the material and how the final edition will look like. A today news theme forces the journalist to beat the others to the matter.

      – It will be all right. – she says, remembering the comment from the girl in the bathroom.

      – I already ordered for both of us. Fish fillet with passion fruit sauce, noisette potatoes and arugula salad with Italian tomatoes.

      – Waiter, an orange juice.

      – And a vodka – insinuates Roberta.

      The two laugh in restrained emotion, leaving the waiter confused. At the end of the room, a gray-haired man gives Roberta a wink, and she despises him of the bat. The man realizes his failure but, not a bit shy, throws himself at another victim, a professional sitting at the barman's counter. The woman in a dress glued to the bluish black skin removes her leopard bag from the seat next to her, facilitating his approach.

      Rosa approaches a nurse in the middle of a tumultuous corridor crowded with white coats. Her heart goes to her stomach and comes back in a spasm of fear. The employee is in a hurry, but is obliged to attend to her. Lucia is impatient, after all, it is not the task of a head nurse.

      – I'm looking for a guy who came in last night, named Gilberto, he was shot.

      – A boy named Gil arrived, he is in the infirmary.

      – But a shot patient in the infirmary, why?

      – Miss, the ICU was full, we only have twenty-six beds. The doctor is examining him now. Are you a relative?

      – No, a friend of his. – disguises Rosa.

      – Oh, ok, no one has come yet, could you tell the relatives? The emergency phone is this one, call later to get patient information! But for visits, relatives only.

      – Was he operated on? Is he reacting? Where was the shot? Is he in any risk of his life? Nurse, Gilberto is like my brother. Please be human, at least that.

      – I can only guarantee what's on the file.

      Rosa gives up and finds Roberta at the elevator door. They exchange few phrases, pressed by other passengers.

      – I need a favor, my friend Junior has no one and if you can give me news, call me, my phone is ...

      People are in a hurry. The elevator doors close and take her hope away.

      "So... Humanity is worth nothing but a sewer of cruelty and human remains ”, Rosa remembers a verse from her bedside book that fits like a glove.