Veronika decides to die   ::   Coelho Paulo

Then I’ll go back to work, I’ll listen to the gossip about who’s going outwith whom, who’s suffering from what, how such and such a person was in tears about her husband, and I’ll be left with the feeling that I’m privileged: I’m pretty, I have a job, I can have any boyfriend I choose. So I’ll go back to the bars at the end of the day, and the whole thing will start again.

My mother, who must be out of her mind with worry over my suicide attempt, will recover from the shock and will keep asking me what I’m going to do with my life, why I’m not the same as everyone else, things really aren’t as complicated as I think they are. “Look at me, for example, I’ve been married to your father for years, and I’ve tried to give you the best possible upbringing and set you the best possible example.”

One day I’ll get tired of hearing her constantly repeating the same things, and to please her I’ll marry a man whom I oblige myself to love. He and I will end up finding a way of dreaming of a future together: a house in the country, children, our children’s future. We’ll make love often in the first year, less in the second, and after the third year, people perhaps think about sex only once every two weeks and transform that thought into action only once a month. Even worse, we’ll barely talk. I’ll force myself to accept the situation, and I’ll wonder what’s wrong with me, because he no longer takes any interest in me, ignores me, and does nothing but talk about his friends as if they were his real world.

When the marriage is just about to fall apart, I’ll get pregnant. We’ll have a child, feel closer to each other for a while, and then the situation will go back to what it was before.

I’ll begin to put on weight like the aunt that nurse was talking about yesterday— or was it days ago? I don’t really know. And I’ll start to go on diets, systematically defeated each day, each week, by the weight that keeps creeping up regardless of the controls I put on it. At that point I’ll take those magic pills that stop you from feeling depressed; then I’ll have a few more children, conceived during nights of love that pass all too quickly. I’ll tell everyone that the children are my reason for living, when in reality my life is their reason for living.

People will always consider us a happy couple, and no one will know how much solitude, bitterness, and resignation lies beneath the surface happiness.

Until one day, when my husband takes a lover for the first time, and I will perhaps kick up a fuss like the nurse’s aunt or think again of killing myself.