The Last Supper

(The first time I heard her talking about someone who had shot and killed someone else, I looked at Jen in horror. Jen had been there longer than I had, and she flashed me a look that said she thought they were all crazy anyway, so it didn’t matter. It took us several days to figure out the murder had actually happened in an episode of one of the novellas.) This was also the table where we had fed the crippled cat taken in off the streets—and returned to the streets when he became too much trouble. (One of those simple, cruel realities that I had learned to accept.)

But now, a table for only two—my friend and I—was being prepared. And Sonia was in the kitchen, happily creating stingray Moqueca.

Jen, being vegetarian, was able to get out of the whole stingray-eating business. Before the meal, she kept up a spirited barrage of questions: “Are you really going to eat it? Did you see it hanging from that guy’s arm? What do you think it tastes like? Its whole face was just cut out, huh? Look at Sonia. She’s so happy cooking that thing for you. You can’t let her down. You gotta eat it.” Apparently Jen had learned a thing or two about Brazilian humor. I don’t think she stopped badgering me until the finished dish was set in front of me. When it was, she smiled ear-to-ear at me. So did Sonia (for different reasons).

I’ll tell you something—I ate that ray and I loved it. I raved and raved about that last dish of Moqueca. Sonia beamed. And Jen—well, Jen was just jealous she wasn’t going to share my experience of stingray Moqueca.

Before leaving the house for the last time, I snuck my remaining three hundred reais (Brazilian dollars) into Sonia’s secret purse. Jen told me later that Sonia cried when she found the money. Then she cried some more because she had forgotten to send me home with lembranças (souvenirs). I thought of my hostess, weeping because she had been unable to give me more gifts—after I had already been given the priceless gift of her hospitality: what beautiful, sad people, living in that beautiful, sad place.