The life and death of John Nobody

Death stirs people’s imagination. Perhaps for that reason there are so many avid readers of obituaries in newspapers. Through carelessness or malice, in today’s edition a near-namesake of the tragic master Nelson Rodrigues died. “Nelson Rodrigues Chaves, at 72, married to Teresa da Silva Rodrigues. Leaves children.” (Folha de S.Paulo, June 17, 2007, p. C6)

Was he Brazilian? What was his profession? Was he a doctor, an engineer, a popcorn vendor? Perhaps he did not even work and spent all his afternoons at the window, next to a typewriter, reporting others’ misfortune and keeping the papers in a cardboard box on top of the wardrobe. Or he had been convalescing for several months, after intestinal surgery, when he discovered he had a degenerative disease that led to his death three months later.

Did he betray his wife? And if he did, did he enjoy it and repeat it, or regret it and confess? Did he steal something, shoot someone, fly to Europe, like candy apples, buy cotton candy for the children, have a mutt named Bob? Did he collect stamps, fix everything with epoxy putty, hand-paint a collection of miniature pirate ships?

But the news is that dear Nelson’s body rests in the Vila Nova Esperança cemetery, in São Paulo, and here, in the land of the Araucarias, people die too.

Thirty-eight were bagged on Sunday while Curitiba slept on the sofa after lunch. Housewives, epileptics, drowning victims and the indigent, all “from this world to a better one,” as the condolence primer goes. The figure is from the City Hall’s Municipal Funeral Service (SFM).

To bury John Nobody

Dying is laborious and expensive. It is better to keep living. The Comunicare reporting team set out to bury John Nobody. John Nobody, 23, drugged and prostituted.

The first toil is getting the death certificate. Dying with medical assistance is one way, dying alone is another, and it is different if it is violent death. We repeat, it is better to keep living. As John died run over, his body was taken to the Medical Examiner’s Institute (IML). After that, with the certificate in hand, it is time to go to the Funeral Service. From there comes the burial release form, a mandatory document for interment in any cemetery in the capital. Subtotal: the first headache.

John Nobody now needs a funeral urn — well, the family needs it. And when the family does not exist or does not care, the State needs it. The price of this morbid product is set by the Funeral Service. There are 13 models and prices range from R$ 171 to R$ 3,840. Outside the table, there are coffins up to R$ 12 thousand, in solid imbuia wood, satin, lace and gilded handles. It depends on the client’s taste, or the client’s former taste. There are some for children, for the too fat, the too tall.

It is worth advising that one die without exceeding 80 kilos, otherwise a special urn must be bought and that makes everything more expensive. Let us be very economical. The purchase of the cheapest coffin includes transporting the body to the funeral home, the plugging — what filling the fellow with cotton is called —, the trip to the wake and finally to the burial. But John’s body needs thanatopraxy — a kind of embalming — which costs R$ 470. Subtotal: R$ 641 and some crying.

But John Nobody was a very good man and deserves to be adorned to receive the last tributes from relatives and friends. Chrysanthemums of unpleasant odor at R$ 144, wilted wreath at R$ 120, and a little tulle veil at R$ 15. Subtotal: R$ 279 and a badly slept night on top of the deceased.

Holy fields

In 1790, the creation of public cemeteries in Curitiba was first heard of. Before that, clergy were buried in their chapels, the rich together with the clergy and the poor (including those who built the chapels) lay seven spans below ground wherever the body bothered least. Suburban burial — far from the village and in a shallow grave — required authorization in which the family committed to moving the bones of its own to a holy field later.

And where will our dear one be buried? If our friend were indigent, the State gives a place in the Santa Cândida Cemetery and three years later what is left of him goes to the ossuary. If he could not pay, also. As that is not the case, for R$ 850 he has a drawer in parish cemeteries. But there are vaults of up to R$ 14 thousand to bury up to three people at once. As John Nobody will have a modest farewell from the world of the living, we will put him in some cemetery called Saint or Holy Something. Subtotal: R$ 850 plus bureaucratic fees.

Goodbye, John Nobody. Longing for the money spent on your departure. Total: R$ 1,770, with no luxury.