We publish books that matter — narrative and literary nonfiction on important topics, and the best of local, international, and translated fiction.

It was Dr Brito who handed me a piece of paper with the name and contact details of the person we should see if we wanted to report it.

The next day, when I woke up, still under the effect of the tranquilisers, my parents and José were already at my place. Michel had slept over. I couldn’t remember my dreams, which was rare, probably as a result of the medication. I’m alive, I thought, relieved. Whenever the memory returned, and it was all the time, I repeated the mantra: I’m alive. In the forest, the feeling that I was close to death was strong. There were moments when I toldmyself, I hope he’s satisfied, I hope it’s good for him, I hope he gets his rocks off, he doesn’t get upset, he isn’t disappointed, but he lets me live. I thought, Let him do what he wants — it’s the only way he’ll leave.

The voices, their voices, grew louder in my head. I needed people to be there as much as I needed them not to be there. Have a seat, said my father, before telling me they’d talked and come to the conclusion that I should go to the police. The perpetrator had to be caught. I stood immediately. I didn’t even want to hear of it. Please, let me wake up, I’m not going to think about it now, in fact, I don’t want to think about it. I already have, the matter’s dead. Let it go. Forget it. I just want to forget it, I said. I’m going to forget it.

I went back to my room and fell asleep again. Two hours later, they were still there, on the same topic, and I was trying hard to be patient. Until José said, You should do it for others, too — for other women, he corrected himself. You need to report it, the guy can’t be left at large out there. Who’s to say you were the only one, or will be the only one? For the first time, an argument touched me. I looked at the four of them, and saw how much they were suffering. The dark circles under their eyes, their weary faces. No matter how alone I was, I wasn’t the only one.

It became apparent that we all needed to cling to an objective in order to get back to the surface. To breathe. Theirs was to contact the police, report it, catch the guy. I agreed to go ahead with it, certain I’d be doing it for them,  and doing something for them was, at that point, what I could do for myself.

Dad pulled the crumpled paper out of his pocket and called the police. That same afternoon, the officers would be there. José and Michel would be at work. My parents, Diana, and I would be present.

I heard their voices when they came in, the same ones that anyone would have heard, but in my head they grew louder, mingled, became independent of their bodies. At times I made out the voice of a woman asking how I was and if they could come in, saying, We don’t want to disturb you, but the male voices blended together and I couldn’t tell who was saying what.

In a row, I first saw an older man, who sat at the desk. Then a woman with waist-length, straightened hair took a seat on the edge of the bed, almost on my feet. Then two men, one very muscular. This was the team that was going to oversee my case.

I asked my parents to leave — I couldn’t be objective with them around — while Diana stood smoking a cigarette at the window. The woman explained that she would ask me several questions. I know it’s a painful process, she said, but I need as many details as possible to find the assailant. One of the men standing introduced himself as the records clerk and asked if he could take a seat. It was the woman who led the conversation, and she told me that the man at the desk would do an identikit sketch.

I refer to them as men and woman, because although I knew their names at the time, I can’t remember them now. The precision they asked of me in those hours, of which I thought I was capable, was lost with each day that passed.

When the clerk sat down, I noticed that he had a gun. When the woman got up to go to the bathroom, I saw that she did, too. I presumed that the muscular man leaning against the wall also had one. I tried hard not to panic, repeating, behind what I was saying out loud: They’re here to protect me, they’re the police, they’re not criminals.

Diana lit another cigarette.

The woman asked me for a full account: Tell me everything that comes to mind, how it started, where you were, what time it was, what he looked like, how he approached you, what he was wearing, his physical features, what he did to you, if he was armed, what his voice was like, and at the end I’ll ask you questions.

It was the first time I’d told the story in so much detail, at first, in such a technical and objective manner that I felt like I wasn’t saying anything. But as I talked, time became tangled, as if I didn’t know the order of events. When had he made me suck his dick, before or after he punched me or my attempt to get away? I stuttered, hesitated, and then she told me that a statement should be made right after the crime. The more time goes by, the more jumbled one’s memory becomes.

When she saw how hard it was for me and the uncertainty that was beginning to set in, she decided to move on to the sketch. Little by little, I understood that it
was like putting together a puzzle. First, you need to draw the shape of the face, long and oval in this case, then the strongest features — scars, a beard, or accessories — and, last of all, fill in the eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, hair.

The sketch artist held up the page and asked if that’s what the mouth was like. When I said it wasn’t, he asked more questions and went back to drawing.

Wider?
Narrower.
Were there any blemishes?
No.
Was the top well-defined?
What do you mean?
Did it have a sharp outline?
A little. I mean, no. I mean, yes.
No or yes?
Maybe. Yes. But not much.
Black?
White.
Mixed race?
White.
Olive complexion?
Maybe.
Maybe?
Yes. White, olive complexion.
Eyes?
Can we continue another day? I’m tired, I told the woman practically sitting on my feet.

I’ve never understood if madness comes all at once or little by little, if a mad person is born mad, if they go mad from one day to the next, or if it happens slowly, and when is it that you realise you’re going mad, or that you’re almost there, or do you never realise it, and if you ask, is it because you’re not mad yet? I wonder every day if I’ve gone or if I’m going mad. It happened a few years ago, then there were the Olympics, and they went well, inexplicably well, but only for a month, because the Olympics in Rio were Rio suspended from itself, or the glimmer of a utopia, the makeup you know how to put on so well but only once in a while, and then the city went downhill, the country went downhill, politics emptied of projects under the sole pretext of catching corrupt politicians and businessmen, corrupt politicians and businessmen were arrested in Rio at the same time that the city was becoming acquainted with its own hell, for the first time not even Rio was capable of saving Rio, which slowly went mad, while I too may have gone mad, or am going mad, but no one sees my madness, then Michel and I got married, we had you, we’re ridiculously happy, now when people look at me they no longer see the body of a woman destroyed, they see the body of a woman who’s had two children and didn’t stop running even when she was pregnant, they see the body of a woman who had a normal birth and a C-section, Antonia was about to be born when her heart sped up, Martim was already out, and suddenly an anaesthetic, an incision, my hands bound as if on a cross and the baby girl wailing, the body that breastfed, one baby on each breast, people look at me and think, Wow, what an intact body, they don’t even remember what happened or, when they do, they weigh it up and say, But she got it all afterwards, she got married, gave birth, she’s a great mother, she lives in a lovely home and she’s beautiful, look at that body, you’d never know it had been dilacerated, torn apart, fragmented, you’d never know that this woman was once a nervous wreck, no one sees what I’m thinking, no one knows I’m going mad or possibly already have, or maybe they know and I don’t know that they know, no, they don’t know, no one knows, I’m not even sure myself, it’s so hard to know, I’ve put myself back together, I haven’t put myself back together, I’ve almost put myself back together, I’ll never put myself back together, I’m still in pieces, I’ve gone mad, I’m going mad, when they were in my belly did my children sense an intact body or a splintered body?, you’re both beautiful, perfect children, but will you be intact on the inside or, because you received nourishment and energy from a splintered body, will you also have a splintered soul?, is what I see of you what you are?, is what others see of me what I am?, because you lived in my belly for nine months do you know that a man once entered me by force, with so much force that he touched me right there, on the uterus where you grew?, do parents pass on their traumas to their children even if we don’t say anything?, at the week-twelve ultrasound the doctor said, One’s a boy, the other one’s hidden, and I immediately remembered the Mexican clairvoyant, son dos niños iguales, they’re two identical children, and breathed a sigh of relief, but then in the week-twenty ultrasound the doctor said, How lovely, a girl and a boy, you can celebrate, and Michel did, he really wanted a girl, more than anything a girl, and I pretended to be happy, but over the following days the nausea came back, heartburn, churning stomach, tiredness, and it wasn’t because of the pregnancy, it was the news, news of the girl moving around inside me and me thinking, Not a girl, and then me telling myself that I shouldn’t think these things because babies feel everything, it says so in the literature, if the mother suffers they suffer, if the mother smiles they smile, all the mother, always the mother, are you sure, doctor, are you sure you aren’t mistaken?, isn’t his willy just tucked away, doctor, can you have another look?, the doctor smiled and I looked deep into his eyes, opening my eyes wide, and said, Doctor, when they grow up, this boy and this girl, I’m going to have to tell them that their mother was raped, then the doctor stopped smiling and Michel looked uncomfortable, where had I got that from in a moment of joy?, we were there to celebrate, not dredge up the past, why bring it up if we’d already overcome the trauma, if we’d forgotten the pain?, now it was all happiness, a boy and a girl were on their way, twins is all a couple wants, and in the silence I repeated, Doctor, when they grow up, this boy and this girl, I’m going to have to tell them, your mother was raped, and the doctor suddenly looked at me and sighed, ah, This idea that our children have to know everything, you could just not tell them, to be honest, if I were you I wouldn’t, then he wiped my belly plastered with gel clean and told us we could go, we just had to wait for the report at reception, congratulations again, twins, a boy and a girl, and he shook Michel’s hand hard, and I didn’t know, I don’t know if I’m going mad or if I’m already mad, it must be hard to tell.

Use the code WIT22 to receive 20% off your purchase of Vista Chinesa.