They return. On the day of some important game, holidays, the town’s anniversary, Carnival Christmas, New Year’s. Danilo came by train. I was stunned. The only one I didn’t expect. He disappeared fifteen years ago. I watch him from my post behind the door of Sao Bento Hotel, where I always position myself when people are arriving. Danilo has changed. A lot. He’s flabby, not fat, swollen, sickly, disheveled. I’d been told he was doing well. Police chief in Goiania. The Danilo I see coming down the stairs is almost as old as his father, the watchman at the store. He carries his cardboard suitcase with difficulty, sweating. He stops twice on the stairs. He’s walking, even though the parking lot is full of taxis. I never heard anything after he disappeared from Sao Paulo. It took him twelve years to finish law school. Luic Carlos visited him once at his home, a studio apartment on Sao Joao Avenue. He didn’t see any furniture, only a china cabinet with the glass panes broken, holding a half-dozen bottles of cognac. Danilo never drank pinga, only cognac. Any brand, from Sao Joao da Barra to Palhinha, even the cheaper ones. His face is wrinkled, his hands heavy. His fingers wrap themselves around the suitcase handle with difficulty. Why did he come? He always hated our town—even when his mother died, he didn’t come back. When we sat at Pedro’s bar, he used to tell me:

“You need to leave. You can’t stay here. You’ve got no chance here—none. Do you want to get married, get fat, hang out at bars and cafes chatting? This town will kill you. It’s like quicksand. You have to leave, if you want to write. Go to Sao Paulo, go work at a newspaper, go get fucked, get drunk. It’s better to fail there than here. Here we’re born failures.”

He talked slowly, all night long, railing against the town; against the people, the gossip. It wasn’t just small talk; it was real hatred. Danilo felt ill when he was here, anguished. There were times when everything he exuded even made me feel bad. So much so that I rebelled: I started to like our town, to find it flawless. You could have a good life here. Sao Paulo was no paradise either.

But at least Danilo was sincere. He disappeared for good. Who knows—maybe that’s why I feel affection for this odd figure walking down the street. He was consistent. He disappeared and cut all ties. He wrote me for three years, insisting that I leave. When I sent him an invitation to my wedding, he fell silent. He stopped writing, though I kept sending letters to his old address. I sent them without a return address, so they couldn’t get returned. When I wanted to say things, get it all off my chest, I wrote, even though I knew Danilo wouldn’t get the letter. It would end up in the trash or be read by someone who I’d never meet. I wonder what all those unknown people thought, all these years, reading me pouring out my heart, my doubts, the questions nobody could answer, what depressed me and excited me? I don’t care. I stopped writing; now I don’t produce even one line, whether it’s a letter, story, novel, or diary. Danilo isn’t going to like it when he finds out.

2

I belong to the generation that witnessed the birth of The Safe Guide to Leaving Home, the Manual of the liberator, Ceres Fhade. I’m hopeful that one day it will be understood and accepted, and widely used. Not everyone from my generation respects the Manual. Most think it’s a dull, heavy book about meaningless problems. What’s generally accepted shouldn’t be discussed, they say. It’s like someone saying the Earth doesn’t orbit the Sun. The Manual was a joke, one of those absurd theories that try to contradict established and proven principles. Some people don’t think like that, though; they know the Manual’s value. What’s the point in wanting to change anything on this Earth? What happened to Ceres Fhade? He had to abandon his research, his kids were expelled from school, they scattered salt on the soil around his house. His effigy was strung up at every gas station. When this kind of thing happens in our town, it means the guy is considered dead. We can’t talk to him, hire him, sell him anything. His credit gets canceled, his bank account closed, they shut off his electricity, water, and gas, and he and his descendants to the third generation are denied membership at the Club. He can stay in town, but nobody’s going to talk to him. Exile is recommended; it’s the best thing to do. The guy moves to Sao Carlos, a friendly place that welcomes everybody and gives people jobs in the Red Street Car Company. I’m not afraid of doors because I’ve read the Manual. It was a great revelation, a true initiation, to plunge into its recommendations, to discover the grandiose simplicity of leaving your home and going outside. After studying the Manual, which took me a whole year of readings and comparisons, it dawned on me: my fear was gone. For me, doors had lost the frightening connotations they have for everyone else. I felt they were normal objects. They were a natural thing in nearby towns, why not in Araraquara? We grew up used to being afraid. Doors were something dreadful in our lives, like good and evil, reward and punishment. We lived with them without touching them. In the same way we lived with a danger at every moment. For some of these dangers, we had found a solution. Falling down in the bathroom, for example. Since the ‘50s, bathrooms had been equipped with hooks and chains for hanging on to when we shower, eliminating the risk of falling, hitting our head on a corner, passing out, and smashing our face on the floor. After reading the Manual I was called crazy: fearless, I defied doors. I touched them, pushed them, slammed them. On rainy days I leaned against them. I peeked through their keyholes, scribbled stuff down, things about the people inside. Obscenities, invectives, insults, slander. And through the cracks in their windows, or through the peepholes every door was required to have, they were watching me. I knew it. Over the phone, anonymously, they denounced me. So I called people at random and screamed, “DOOR.” They hung up every time. I made flyers (copied from the Encyclopedia Britannica) on the history of the door, their function and why they’re necessary. Late at night I would leave the flyers at people’s houses. I tried to interest a publisher in Ceres Fhade’s Manual. No luck.