The key turned in the lock with a soft click, the only sound in the house that betrayed his arrival. The violence stayed outside the oak door, along with the smell of cheap antiseptic and cigarette that he seemed to carry on his skin, his clothes, the strands of his thinning hair.
"Is that you, Evandro?"
Célia's voice came from the kitchen, a worn timbre as warm as the stove that was always on. She appeared in the hallway, drying her hands on a floral dish towel. Her eyes, surrounded by a network of fine wrinkles, scrutinized him as she had every night for forty-three years.
"You look like a ghost coming at this hour" she said, without rancor, just a tired observation. "You're too old for these doctor's hours, Evandro. Your body can't take it."
He hung his coat on the rack, a slow and deliberate movement. When he turned to her, the smile was already in place—a careful arrangement of thin lips, a slight lifting of the cheeks that made his glasses rise a millimeter. It was a smile he had practiced over decades, until it became as natural as breathing.
"Ah, Celinha. You know I love my work" his voice came out in a soft thread, almost a confidential murmur. He leaned in and planted a kiss on her soft, sunken cheek. She smelled of laundry soap and the potato stew she was cooking. A smell of home. A smell of facade.
Célia mumbled something inaudible and went back to the kitchen. He watched her go, the dragging walk of hips that had once been broad and vigorous. Célia. She had met him in a bar in the port district, when the fire of brutality still burned fully within him. He wasn't a "doctor" then; he was just Evandro, the lean and dangerous man who drank pure cachaça and whose defiant gaze looked for fights in the dark corner of any tavern.
He had seen her being harassed by two men. He didn't intervene out of chivalry—a concept he always found laughable—but because he saw in the scene an opportunity to unleash the violence boiling in his veins. The beating had been brief, efficient, and excessively cruel. When the two fled, she stood still, looking at him not with admiration, but with a deep, fascinated fear, like someone looking at a wolf that, on a whim, decided not to attack.
He took her home—his home, a filthy cubicle—and she, for reasons he never understood and never tried to, didn't flee. She saw the ferocity in him as a sickness, a fever that could be treated. Little by little, with a patience he considered stupidity, she tamed the animal. Not with confrontations, but with silence, with hot food on the table, with a constant, non-threatening presence. Age helped. His reflexes slowed, the need to prove something diminished. The fury gave way to a tranquil emptiness, which he discovered was far more convenient. He stopped coming home drunk and bloodied from fights. He stopped breaking furniture in fits of rage. Célia thought she had won. That the wounded wolf had finally calmed down.
What she didn't know—and would never know—is that the beast hadn't been tamed, only found a better pack to hunt with. The brutality hadn't dissipated; it had professionalized. The thirst for violence hadn't been extinguished; it was channeled into a trade that not only satisfied it but also profited from it. And the drinking... he really did stop. He preferred the icy lucidity of his work to the warm haze of alcohol. Sometimes, he missed the smell of cachaça on his own breath. Now, he only smelled of other things.
A roar from a crowd and triumphant music invaded the hallway. He followed the sound to the living room.
"Dad, come quick! The game is starting!"
Márcio, his son, was sunk into the green velvet sofa, already worn on the arms. Beside him, a small being with dark hair and wide eyes followed the TV images intently. Lucas, his grandson. Five years old.
"Grandpa!" the boy shouted, without taking his eyes off the screen.
"Dad, bring me a beer?" asked Márcio, extending his hand behind him in an automatic gesture.
He stood still in the doorway, observing the scene. The middle-aged man on the sofa, his belly beginning to protrude. The child, absorbed in colors and rapid movements. The warm room, illuminated by the bluish light of the television, full of the clutter of a common life: a toy car abandoned on the rug, a magazine on the coffee table, a blanket folded over the back of the sofa.
He saw it as an anthropologist would observe a ritual of a strange tribe. He understood the movements, the words, the dynamics. He could even reproduce them perfectly. But the connection, the true bond that should tie those people to him... was a tenuous thread, almost invisible, sustained only by immense, meticulous, and constant performance.
He knew he was different. That he didn't feel the overflowing love that books and soap operas spoke of. He didn't feel deep pride for his son. The tenderness for his grandson was a distant thing, more aesthetic than visceral—he found the boy an interesting organism, fragile and noisy. But he appreciated the environment. The calm. The predictability. The perfect disguise that domestic scene provided.
That was his true work of art: not what he did in the cold room with the week's "Carlos," but the construction and maintenance of this warm room.
"I'll bring it" he replied, his voice imbued with perfectly credible domestic fatigue.
He went to the kitchen. Célia was stirring the stew.
"Márcio is waiting for you" she said, without turning.
"I know."
"Lucas loved the car you gave him. He won't stop playing with it."
"That's good."
He opened the refrigerator, took out a cold can of beer.
He returned to the living room and handed the can to Márcio. He sat in the armchair beside the sofa, not too close, not too far. The position of the benevolent and somewhat distant patriarch.
"Thanks, Dad. Look at this play, it's crazy!"
He nodded. On the screen, sweaty men ran after a ball. A collective effort for an arbitrary goal. A choreography of sweat and simulated passion. He understood the logic, but the emotion was foreign to him.
Lucas turned and came running, climbing onto his lap with the absolute confidence of childhood.
"Grandpa, my team is the green one!"
"Is that so?" he asked, letting his hand rest lightly on the boy's head. The hair was soft, clean. It smelled of children's shampoo. A smell diametrically opposed to all the others he knew so well.
"Yeah! The prettiest!"
He smiled. The same gentle smile he had given Célia. A useful tool.
The game followed its predictable course, punctuated by Márcio's groans and Lucas's sharp comments, repeating what he heard from his father. Evandro remained motionless, his hand on his grandson's head, feigning interest.
The doorbell rang as the first half ended.
"Must be Carla" said Márcio, getting up with a grunt to answer.
It was Carla, his daughter-in-law, entering like a gust of fresh air and cheap perfume, carrying grocery bags and the weariness of a day at the office. She kissed everyone, complained about the traffic, talked about her boss. She was a being of noise and movement, and Evandro watched her with the same distant curiosity with which he observed everything. She bothered him a little, with her constant need to fill the silence, but he knew her existence was another brick in the wall of his normality.
Dinner was served. Everyone at the table, under the yellow light of the lampshade. Célia served the stew. Carla talked about office gossip. Márcio complained about the team. Lucas knocked over a glass of water. There was commotion, cloths, laughter. Evandro chewed slowly, participating with an "is that so?" or a slight nod when necessary. It was like watching a play for which he knew all the lines but didn't feel the plot. The stew was good. Comforting. He savored the earthy taste of the potato, the tenderness of the meat. The food was real, at least.
After dessert, the farewell ritual began. The kisses, the "see you on Sunday" the reminders for Lucas to take his coat. Carla helped Célia take the dishes to the kitchen, refusing help with the usual insistence. The house gradually lost the density of sound, emptying of the warmth of other bodies.
Finally, the door closed. Silence descended, heavier than before. A real silence now, not just a pause between noises.
Célia began washing the dishes. He stood up and, unasked, began to dry. It was an old, unspoken pact. She washed, he dried and put away. Neither of them spoke. The only sound was running water and the dishcloth on the bottom of the pans. It was a moment of near-perfect synchronicity, a silent dance of forty years. She didn't need to ask where to put a bowl; he already had the cabinet open. He didn't need to say the knife was poorly washed; she would take it and scrub it again. In this domestic choreography, he found genuine peace, because it required no emotion, only ritual.
The task finished, she dried her hands.
"I'm going to bed. I'm tired."
"Me too."
He locked the door, turned off the hallway lights, checked the stove. The closing routine. The house was in order.
In the bedroom, the ritual continued. She put cream on her hands. He folded his pants over the chair. They exchanged few words, about their grandson, about dinner. Nothing that mattered. They were sounds to fill the space, like the crickets outside.
She lay on her side, her back to him, and within minutes her breathing became deep and regular. He lay on his back, looking at the dark ceiling. The house creaked in its structure, small cracks of aging wood.
With a sigh that was not of weariness but of conclusion, he closed his eyes. The day's performance was over. Everything had been executed according to the script: the efficient brutality of work, the calculated kindness of home. No flaws. No loose ends.
In the darkness, to himself and to no one else, he whispered the words that marked the end of another perfect act:
"End of day."