For Heaven’s sake, I stuck the kid in a Catholic boys’ school for ten years—I still don’t know how he didn’t turn out a faggot—and now he wants to treat me like his son? To each his own. It’s his goody-goody mother’s fault. It must be revenge, that has to be it. The medications, the exams, it’s all revenge. It has nothing to do with compassion. Human beings aren’t motivated by good intentions.
I forgot Norma even existed, her and Vanda. They’re back in Ribeirão Preto. Inácio tells me a thing or two. He said his mother married a relative and Vanda an engineer; she’s got a son. Engineer, what a mediocre profession. My dynasty was born and dies with me. No one’s following in my footsteps.
Footsteps. People are milling around again. “Fucking hell, stand back, can’t you see it’s muggy in here?” I fell over, I didn’t see it happen. Wasn’t I sitting up? When did I fall? I’m going to do another line. Poppers and a line. A line and poppers. For the journey. What journey, Sílvio? Yours ends here. I’m afraid. I must be in a bad way to have pulled such a crowd. “Fuck off, you, gimme those poppers! Give ’em back! They’re mine! I went to the den to get them. I’m gonna snort this shit right here in front of you, you dickhead, oh yes I am. Weee-aaaw…”
Again, it happened again. Sprawling and standing, at the same time. It’s a poetic scene, me and the Carnival-goers: pirates, Bacchuses, and vampires. I like it. My God, what a relief, what lightness, what a glow, what a beautiful sunrise over Guanabara Bay. It’s what I’ve always wanted, to not care about the things around me, to not suffer, not feel. God, it’s good.
I believe in punishment. Which is a way of believing in God. Crooked, but it is. My lineage is ancient and perverse, of debauchees, devilry, and the likes. Paradise is of no use to me. I prefer the company of those who have practiced violence against others, themselves, God, art, and nature. My own kind. Divine death is my empire. It’s what I’ve been looking for all my life. I got it. So why am I, now, in the delirium of my final moments, gripped by thoughts of damnation? Is it masochism? Perhaps. Who would have thought that you, Sílvio, would prove to be a dyed-in-the-wool Christian? There’s no such thing as pardon.
Padre Roque felt me up from the fifth to the eighth grade. He liked to punish us with Dante. We’d read and reread his circles during recess, in the heat of the library. He can’t even imagine the value of that long-ago torture at this hour. I owe to him the imagery that accompanies me now, as I hover over the Corcovado near the dome of the sky. There are no cherubs or seraphs, no bolts of lightning, doves or white clouds. I see the Wood of Suicides and the boiling river of blood, I see beasts, centaurs, and sodomites. “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost…”
I went in as I came out. Man doesn’t change, he transmutes, he is always the same. Until the next eternity.
Inácio organized his father’s funeral service. Neither Norma nor Vanda attended. The three women Sílvio had left at his apartment came to pay their respects, and stuck together the whole time. It wasn’t the first time they’d been called out by the Sex Fiend of Glória. A transvestite and a few other dregs of society completed the small group. Ribeiro didn’t know anyone. Sílvio’s son stood beside his father’s body the whole time and made a point of thanking every lunatic, drunk, bum, and whore for coming. Inácio was admirably composed, but when he saw Ribeiro walk over, he hugged his old acquaintance and broke down in tears. Ribeiro tried to reciprocate. He remembered Inácio as a child, on Sundays at Ciro’s, and how he’d felt sorry for the kid when Sílvio sent him to the German boarding school in Petrópolis. He gave him a tight hug.
Inácio had been getting ready to take his youngest daughter to the children’s street parade when he received the phone call. He’d been trying to contact his father since Monday. He’d made more than twenty phone calls, all ignored, and had even left a message with the doorman of the building in Glória, but Sílvio had disappeared. It happened sometimes, but the worsening of his Parkinson’s, his goddamn addiction, and his depravity condemned his only relative who gave a shit to live in a constant state of worry.
“Here comes my pain-in-the-ass son wanting to control me. Chop me out a fat one so I can toast Saint Inácio, Maritza!” the madman would exclaim every time 9634 5888 flashed on the screen of his cell phone.
A stranger asked who was speaking and wanted to know if Inácio was alone or if there was someone else with him. Inácio was suspicious, thinking it might be a kidnapping, and threatened to call the police. Then the person on the other end introduced himself as a paramedic. He was calling from a cell phone found in the jacket pocket of an unidentified white male, about seventy years of age, bald, slim, and of average height. He appeared to be drunk, was in possession of illegal substances, and had been found by Carnival-goers in Cinelândia, near the municipal theater.
“We redialed the number of the last missed call. Do you know someone by that description?”
“Yep. My dad.”
It’s a waste of oxygen to go into the legal pilgrimage required to recover the body of an addict who checks out on a street corner in a big city. Something straight out of Antigone. Inácio had to deal with the truculence of the police, the sarcasm of the coroners, and the sadness of having no reason to be proud of his father. He struggled not to give in to lethargy. While he waited to claim whatever was left of Sílvio from the cold chamber, in the same wing where, years later, Irene would go to ID Álvaro, Inácio ran his eyes over the pamphlets at reception to anchor himself to something concrete. One of them contained suggestions for funeral notices, medieval crosses, Stars of David, exalting words of love and unity. The wife, daughters, sons-in-law, and beloved mother of so-and-so thank everyone for their sympathies. Inácio didn’t know what it was to have a family like that. There at reception, where Irene would later be relieved that she was suffering less than the obese mother, made queasy by the same nauseating smell, Inácio made a decision. He would publish a large half-page ad, if possible, as big as he could afford, notifying everyone of Sílvio’s death. In it, he would apologize for his father.
He got a pen and a sheet of lined paper from reception and drafted a solemn death notice. The Heart of Mary next to the name of the deceased in bold, followed by a text copied from the templates he had seen in the pamphlets. He wasn’t happy with the result. He kept the heart and the name, but realized that the farewell to his monstrous father should be on par with what he had done in life. He was frank. And vindictive.
In the obituaries section of O Globo on February 23, 2009, a large notice, taking up almost a quarter page, caught Ribeiro’s eye. He habitually glanced through the death notices and often came across someone he knew, but Inácio’s name and, above all, the content of the notice, surprised him. Beyond a doubt, the Sílvio in the notice was Sílvio—that Sílvio, the infamous Sílvio.
Inácio, son of
Sílvio Motta Cardoso Junior,
wishes to communicate the passing of his ill-famed father,
unfaithful husband, abominable grandfather, and disloyal friend.
“I apologize to everyone who, like me, suffered affronts
and insults, and invite you to his much-awaited interment,
which will take place on February 23, 2009,
at São Francisco Xavier Cemetery,
Rua Monsenhor Manuel Gomes, 155,
in this city of Rio de Janeiro, at 4 pm.”
The resentment of times past, the spite, the betrayal: there it was, pounding in his temples all over again. The sudden feeling of revulsion made Ribeiro drop the newspaper. He walked across the sand and threw himself into the sea. It had rained a lot the day before and the water was filthy. The coldness of the water brought on a state of paralysis in Ribeiro, who floated there amid orange peels and plastic cups and bags. A Godsend, this cesspool. Once he had recovered from the news, he let his conscience act. He decided that he would accept Inácio’s invitation and celebrate the end of Sílvio. He wanted to be sure
he was buried six feet under in a well-sealed coffin.
Ribeiro had never forgiven Sílvio. In the moral order of his backward mind, not coveting your neighbor’s wife was the first commandment to be followed by men who considered themselves brothers. But there was a second reason, furtive and unspeakable, propelling Ribeiro to the cemetery: to see if Suzana would be there. Now that Sílvio had gone, and Neto and Ciro before him, the only one left was Álvaro, who had already told him he didn’t know a thing. Suzana was the only answer to the question that had gnawed away at him for thirty-three years. Had they cheated on him, or not?
Suzana had fled Bauru. Her family wanted her locked up for dating another girl from high school. They kissed at school, at the movies, at the ice cream parlor, and had spent the night in the police lockup more than once. Her father would roar in his country accent, “That isn’t norrrmal!”
And she would reply with the same rolled “R”, “It is norrrmal, Dad! It’s norrrmal!”
One night, after a beating with his belt, Suzana jumped out the window, walked to the highway, and hitched a ride to Rio on a truck. She was seventeen.
The beach was a meeting place for gays. Shy ones, slim ones, chic ones, rude ones, fat ones. Suzana had friends in various circles up and down Copacabana Beach. Her wonderland extended as far as the Coqueirão beach kiosk, in Ipanema. “It was God who brought me here,” the open-minded country girl would repeat, laughing, with the April sun setting behind the pier, lighting up her white teeth. Suzana loved the gay crowd of Ipanema, she shared their outlook on life. She’d grown up a hippie and an outcast, among people who looked down their noses at her. That was why she was accepted immediately and became confidante, disciple, sister, and daughter to many. She was one of them. She worked as a waitress, a receptionist, a shop assistant, and a checkout girl, and she tried her hand at acting and singing. Suzana was eclectic, but she never really got anywhere in anything.
The drag queen Lana Ley rented a back-facing one-bedroom apartment over the Alaska Shopping Arcade. She missed the sister she had left behind in Maceió and made Suzana her darling in Rio. She liked to stroll down Rua Joaquim Nabuco with her, giving her tips on etiquette. Copacabana, according to Lana, was the beach for poor gays. Something very different was happening at Farme de Amoedo, in Ipanema, in the hedonistic worshiping of Barbies and pretty boys, in the high spirits, topless sunbathing, and free sex.
Ribeiro arranged to play a game of beach volleyball near the Coqueirão with Ciro and Neto. The king of Miguel Lemos was coming to grips with the new era, although he lamented that everything was unisex now. “I’m from the days when men liked women,” he would say, depressed by the scrawny macrobiotic-fed bodies. A more violent spike sent the ball into the middle of a long-haired group. Ribeiro came over to say sorry. He wasn’t good-looking, but his body was impressive. The gays all applauded. Suzana got up to return the ball. She was holding a joint and offered it to Ribeiro, but he turned it down. “I don’t like pot or coke, just spirits,” he said. She laughed and asked if she could be of assistance in anything else. Naughty, naughty. They hit it off in bed and the bodybuilder took a shine to the beach babe from Bauru.
Both Ciro and Sílvio got married, Neto and Célia were expecting, and Álvaro, the only one besides Ribeiro who was still in the game, was sweet on Ruth’s friend Irene, who, years later, would cheat on him for all of Rio to know. That was when Lana Ley kicked Suzana out of her cubicle. The girl wouldn’t pick anything up, ate whatever she saw in front of her, didn’t lift a finger to do the dishes or pay for anything, and was always in the company of a girl called Brites. “The freeloader!” Lana complained at the Sandalus Nightclub. Suzana moved into Ribeiro’s apartment without him even noticing it. By the time he did, she was already there.
Neto’s son Murilo was born in March. Ciro had everyone over for lunch to celebrate the new arrival. Ribeiro thought it would be good to take Suzana, show them that he was with someone. So he did. Suzana lit a joint in the garden. Célia was shocked—Neto’s wife was square. Ciro gave Ribeiro an ironic look and Ruth signaled to him to tell his girlfriend it wasn’t going over well. Irene disappeared into the kitchen with Norma, Sílvio’s wife. Álvaro still hadn’t arrived.
Ribeiro went to ask Suzana what was going on. He was surprised to find Sílvio sharing the joint with her in the middle of the ferns. Sílvio had never been trustworthy. Ribeiro told her to lose the roach. She and Sílvio laughed together as if Ribeiro were a hall monitor. He grabbed Suzana by the arm and left, offended. From that afternoon on, the certainty that Sílvio was having an affair with Suzana began to plague Ribeiro like a sharp, recurring migraine. Suzana hated to be put against the wall. Yeah, right! she’d reply in a fury. I did Sílvio, Ciro, Neto, and even Álvaro. Happy now? But the goddamn woman refused to put his mind at rest.
It took a long time for Ribeiro to work up the courage to ask Sílvio. He took his last opportunity before the immoral bastard left town, that notorious night after the party in Leme.
They were grown, desperate men, living out Rio’s macho heyday and sensing its inevitable decline. They were about to see off Sílvio, the libertine, the only one of the five who was divorced. Sílvio had split up with Norma two years prior and was free to pack his bags and go wherever he wanted. The night out was a farewell. The next day, Sílvio was moving to Porto Alegre in the company of two gaúchas who, according to him, had made him young again. “Keep your marriages, he ribbed them, your perfect little lives, ’cause old Sílvio here ain’t ever coming back!” The she-devils had stolen him from his four friends. Ribeiro suspected that one of them was Suzana. He was almost certain. Almost, but not enough, which is why he hesitated to confront his rival, afraid of looking ridiculous.
Sílvio had planned his epic send-off with strategic precision. They would lift off from his place in Glória, mixing whiskey, blow, weed, and amphetamines, and would keep their adrenaline in check, alternating between uppers and Mandrax or Lorax, depending on preference. They would cut loose at the fiftieth birthday party of Gorete Campos do Amaral, the former Madame Juneau, in her exuberant ten-thousand-square-foot penthouse in Leme, fruit of her recent divorce from the owner of a chain of French supermarkets, the magnate Gilles Juneau.
The open bar was scheduled for nine. They arranged to meet at ten in Glória and head to the party between eleven and midnight. Gorete’s birthday promised to be a good one. The socialite, whose millionaire husband had traded her in for a Russian girl thirty years her junior, had decided to put to rest the role of exemplary wife with a big bash. She had dedicated twenty-five years of her life to others, but now her children were grown and Gilles was gone. She had wallowed in barbiturates for a year and needed to prove to herself that she was back in the saddle. With a bank account proportionate to the size of her husband’s guilt, she splashed out on her reentry into Rio’s high society. Her guests, a mixture of old money, jetsetters, starlets, sports stars, intellectuals, and counter-culture idols, didn’t include the five middle-class men with mediocre jobs and no artistic or economic achievements. Brites had gotten them in at Suzana’s request. The DJ, charged with providing the party favors, had ordered thirty grams of cocaine from Brites and had done her the favor of putting all their names on the list.
The Horsemen of the Apocalypse had rolled up to the party as high as kites. Ciro was the first to break away from the mother cell, attending the come-hither stare of an Argentinean woman who was devouring him with her eyes in the library. Sílvio let it all hang out on the dance floor with John Travolta moves. Álvaro leaned against the bar, while Ribeiro ordered a vodka and went to check out the view from the balcony; it was hard for him. Neto was nowhere to be seen. Sílvio kept an eye on his friends. If he saw signs of flagging energy, he’d race over with the right pill and, voila, the puppet would come back to life. If they appeared to be racing, he’d calm the monster with quaaludes. And so the hours passed, between increasingly confusing highs and lows. Wild Saturdays. Sílvio looked after the other
s until he could no longer look after himself. Those with masochistic tendencies sank into the Italian sofa, the maniacs reached the stratosphere. Neto was on the moon. They had been in different corners of the party for some time when he opened the bathroom door with his fly undone and, singing the chorus of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” shimmied into the middle of the dance floor with his dick swinging as a tribute to the hostess. Álvaro finally got off his ass. Ciro abandoned the Argentinean, Ribeiro, the balcony, and both ran to control the old goat. Sílvio saw that it was time to wind up phase one of their spree, but before he could do anything, four security guards trained in Israel immobilized Neto with an arm lock and dragged him to the back door, together with Ciro and Ribeiro. They were kicked into the elevator, received by a second battalion of Mossad agents in the garage, and ejected into the bed of yuccas in front of the elegant building. Álvaro, Sílvio, and a selection of first-class meat came down the guest elevator. Sílvio handed out the last round of narcotics and suggested they all head to his pad in Glória. They accepted the invitation with cheer—everyone but Ribeiro, who was doing the math. There was one broad missing for each of them to be able to look himself in the mirror when he got home. The possibility of having to share one with Sílvio—him of all people—made him want to puke. Even so, he hurried to get into his rival’s car, God knows why… The brunette climbed into the back seat and the others got into their cars with their respective companions. Today, I’m going to settle this, Ribeiro swore to himself, and rode in silence as Sílvio drove through Aterro do Flamengo Park.
The End Page 7