by João Almino
Aunt Francisca went to the refrigerator and brought over some juice for Valdivino, Drink it, it’ll calm your nerves, Ah, if only Mr. Bernardo Sayão were alive, said Valdivino, he’d find a solution, they’re going to name the new railway station after him: Bernardo Sayão Station, that’s what it’ll be called, and it’s still not enough, everything here should be named after him. I don’t know what Moacyr can do to help you, said Aunt Francisca.
I won’t rest until I’m able to get that guy and all the others in the SPB who participated in the massacre behind bars, I’m going to denounce them all, the only problem is that there’s no judge in Brasília, only out in Planaltina, I’m going to go to their leader, the Colonel, I’ll go to Newcap, I’ll tell the Tribune everything I know, but I can’t do all this while I still live there, that guy will kill me first, said Valdivino, whose eyes were filling with tears.
Come here, you, said Aunt Francisca, and she laid Valdivino’s head on her shoulder, you’re going to stay here, there’s room for you, all we have to do is hang up another hammock in the living room, as you know, the house is yours, now let me call Moacyr.
In my journal I complained about seeing Valdivino in Aunt Francisca’s arms. These days I know that I greatly exaggerated what I’d seen there: I must have made Aunt Francisca’s eyes more amorous, invented malice in her tone of voice, in those hands that stroked Valdivino’s head, I had Aunt Francisca sitting closer to Valdivino, to tell the truth I had her snug against him, and I mixed that together with my catechism lessons, with the obligations to God that Aunt Francisca herself had taught me, with what I’d heard in Mass about marriage—if anyone has anything to say, let them say it now—and then I vented about all that in the pages of my diary.
Aunt Francisca called Dad. He’d already heard about the massacre, but the story might have just been made up, I think we need to act quickly, argued Aunt Francisca, Valdivino can stay here for today at least, he’s risking his life, That’s out of the question, replied Dad over the telephone, Well then, you need to do something, talk to someone at Newcap.
Dad sensed that causing a scandal about this matter could endanger his contracts, No, tell Valdivino that he shouldn’t play with fire, as far as I know no one was killed.
Valdivino understood, he thought that Dad was right to not want him to stay, I’m going to take off.
Aunt Matilde, who was normally so courageous, watched everything passively and then went to her bedroom, as if nothing were happening.
Moacyr isn’t the only one who gives orders in this house, Matilde and I want you to stay, insisted Aunt Francisca, No, I don’t want to disobey Mr. Moacyr.
Dad wasn’t happy when he saw that Valdivino was still at our house, but he didn’t say anything about it until, without my knowledge, he read those pages of my journal, You don’t even have the decency to be discreet, Francisca, getting frisky with Valdivino in front of the boy—I listened to the whispered argument in the back of the house—It’s him or me, said Dad, Him, then, said Aunt Francisca, I don’t need you here, and if anything happens to Valdivino, it’s your fault, He didn’t tell you all the full story, he had a falling out with that policeman over a girl and he must have taken advantage of this story about a shootout to get revenge on him, but I doubt that he’s in as much danger as he says he is, what he needs to do is just keep his mouth shut, No, you insensitive monster, Valdivino isn’t one to lie or take revenge, Aunt Francisca argued further, and then frowned in a way she rarely ever did. Dad just shook his head, with an air of disbelief. And don’t talk to me ever again, added Aunt Francisca.
Valdivino not only slept in our house that night, but Aunt Francisca persuaded him to stay one more day and, the day after, that he should stay another day still, It’s so nice to know you, Valdivino, and it’s a pleasure to have you in our home, said Aunt Francisca, challenging Dad.
I’d listened to Valdivino’s story and witnessed Aunt Francisca’s reaction as if I were watching a movie, but as the story developed before my ears, I became part of the movie and, attentive to the details of the plot, felt that there would be a sad ending, if not a tragic one.
Fortunately for me, Valdivino’s presence didn’t cause a rift between Aunt Francisca and Dad like the one that had happened before. It had been a senseless argument, it was possible to fix or amend almost anything, Aunt Francisca explained to me, without blaming me for anything, although perhaps she didn’t even know that Dad had read my journal. But I could sense that she was growing increasingly critical of Dad’s business deals, and especially of his partnership with Paulão.
I know why you dislike him, but look, Paulão doesn’t own the brothel anymore, as I’ve already told you, and I don’t frequent those places, explained Dad. Paulão had, in fact, closed the brothel, and Dad no longer had any interest in checking out other brothels out at Placa da Mercedes. He desired Lucrécia during his lonely nights, and even missed her craziness, the added spice to that pliant body, which exuded desire like a volcano, but Paulão finally managed to convince him that she’d really given up that life and left, that she no longer lived in the Free City, and he had no reason to suspect the surprises in store for him when he eventually saw her again.
No, it’s not because of the brothel, you know what I’m talking about, replied Aunt Francisca, and Dad started to feel unsure of how much she knew about his partnership with Paulão.
Roberto came over to the house frequently and enlivened our conversations, which at that point had transcended the borders of the Free City and Brasília. Didn’t I tell you that Lucas Lopes wouldn’t last?, said Aunt Matilde, triumphantly waving in his face the fact that the Treasury Minister had just been replaced that day, July 3, 1959. You disliked him for the wrong reasons, replied Roberto, Brazil does need foreign capital and to continue investing in the programs of JK’s “Goal-Oriented Plan,” but to get tied to the IMF right now just because of a loan . . . the president is right, we should cut ties with the IMF and continue doing what we have to do, But the opposition is right to object to rising inflation and runaway public spending, said Dad, They’re only saying that because the electoral campaigns are starting, responded Roberto, They’re saying that the governor of São Paulo is going to be nominated as the opposition candidate for president, said Dad. I trust him to get things back under control and bring morality to this country, I’d vote for him, said Aunt Matilde, It’s a pity that the government’s candidate is so uncharismatic, Dad commented, That general couldn’t even win in his dreams, said Aunt Matilde in agreement, They’re even saying that the president is going to push a Constitutional reform through congress so that he can be reelected, said Dad. Aunt Francisca grew bored with those discussions, and only participated in the conversation when the subject veered towards the singers on the radio, or the case of Aída Curi, the young woman who was murdered by playboys in Rio de Janeiro.
At this point in his edit, João Almino complained about the absence of Valdivino from the story, and for that reason I’ll hasten to say that every now and then, for months, Aunt Francisca would ask after him. It’s possible that he went back to the Northeast, speculated Dad, it’s better for him that way, Do you have no pangs of conscience for what you did, do you have no heart?, Aunt Francisca demanded of him.
It came as a surprise to me when, in November of that year, 1959, during an enormous downpour, she came home with dramatic news about Valdivino. I had gone out into the street during the storm to join in the mirth with all the other little kids, and to build character, make myself stronger, and learn to brave bad weather. It was one of my greatest pleasures, we’d cause a ruckus running through the streets, shouting as we went, we’d argue over who got to play in the streams of water that fell from the roof-tiles—our heavy shorts dripping water onto the ground like faucets—and shudder with fear at the thunder, the way people take pleasure in watching horror films. When Aunt Francisca saw me that day, she told me to go home. I noticed that she seemed dejected and I gladly went with her, as she shiel
ded me with her umbrella and held my wet hand. When we arrived home, she told Dad that she’d run into Valdivino in the Free City, and that he was despondent because his brother had died in tragic fashion two months earlier.
He’s not upset at you, Moacyr, quite the opposite, he wants to meet up with you, he says that he still has to be careful about where he goes, that people are still after him, and that’s why he’s living in an isolated place, at a nearby farm. I told him that he could come visit you here next Sunday, but if you don’t want to, then just leave, and we’ll receive him.
Between four walls, on that sixth night, Dad related to me, with a richness of details, what Valdivino told him on that distant Sunday, I was being chased down, and still am, by Aristotle, that guy I wanted to denounce, by Carminha’s dad, and even by that landowner, who is still trying to get me to pay my debt, so I had to leave my job and flee Planalto Village. When they discovered that I was living in Amaury Village with my brother, I had to take refuge in the commune where I live now. After I moved, I hardly ever saw my brother, because of the distance and also because if I ever went back to Amaury Village they would easily find me.
The shadows from the tree branches vividly striped the ground, together with both their shadows, as they walked through a desolate landscape, on a dirt road full of deep grooves left by the recent rain.
His brother was an alcoholic and was drunk when the implacable water had risen in September, taking with it the houses of Amaury Village, setting snakes and other animals adrift, as well as everything that came out of the open septic tanks. His brother and six others had perished, They only found my brother’s body some days later, floating; I made a deal with him, Mr. Moacyr, that whoever died first would send a sign to the other from the great beyond, so every day I’m looking for a sign from my brother, but there hasn’t been anything yet.
The love of his life, even though she’d never wanted to meet his brother, had become really upset and cried a lot over his death, I wanted to tell you, since you’re a brain doctor, Mr. Moacyr, what’s been going on with me, I really want to marry her, Mr. Moacyr, but she demands that I do things for her to earn her love, and I do them, one after another, but she always finds my efforts lacking. I worked myself to death, and all the money I earned went to buy the land she wanted for her commune. I have to confess something: she doesn’t give herself to me anymore, or to anybody. She’d even marry me, as long as nothing sexual ever happened between us, said Valdivino, who was breaking out in a cold sweat.
That’s a nervous symptom, said Dad, diagnosing him.
You know something, Mr. Moacyr? The thing is I’m still in love with her, but now the situation’s become more complicated, she only accepted me into the commune once I swore that I would stop liking her the way I do. She’s really strange now, everything’s very mysterious with her. I can tell you, Sir, and no one else, that there’s a secret about our lives, mine and hers. Something she told me in the past, but that she now denies, and she’s denying it so that we won’t end up together. For her the past doesn’t even exist, she believes that she’s founding a new world. I have no doubt that she’s virtuous, a holy virgin, it’s just that she has this friend, an ill-bred sort, who doesn’t like me and wants to run everything out there in the commune.
If you were a little clearer about all this, maybe I could give you some advice.
I can tell you about it, Sir, they told me that it was well-known in the Free City that she was a loose woman.
And what do you think?
It’s slander, and I won’t stand for such slander. What she has is a difficult temperament, and now she’s having all sorts of visions and revelations, she sees spirits, Mr. Moacyr, there are even people who live with her in a cosmic world.
They could be schizophrenic outbursts.
No, they’re spiritual immersions, but I’m not complaining, Mr.
Moacyr, the commune is like the final church that I’ve helped to build, the most complete of them all, a church made up of every religion. I want to help all the hopeless people here move out to the commune, it’s just that I have to be very careful whenever I go out.
But what do you want to do with your life after that, Valdivino? You have a lot of skills, you can’t just stay hidden, doing nothing with your life.
Valdivino then explained to Dad, in his own words, which may not be exactly the ones that I’ll use here, that he had no ambitions, only that he’d never sully his honor or lose his courage, that he’d already come close to dying, and for that reason life, for him, was a privilege, he took pleasure in the small things in life, like animals and plants, he wanted a simple happiness, harvested from the dryness of the quotidian, like flowers that grow in gray, arid, desert landscapes, his friend was reason enough to keep him interested in living, to love and to be loved were his greatest aspirations . . .
You can stay the night with us whenever you want, offered Dad this time.
Thank you very much, Mr. Moacyr, but I always prefer to make it back to the commune, it’s safer that way; I only come to the Free City when I need to, and I rarely need to.
Seventh Night: The Desert and Oblivion
On the seventh night, between bars and with one dingy white wall in front of us, which had words scrawled on it, as well as a heart, an addition problem, a division problem, and some meaningless streaks that ran up to the top of the wall, on the right side, Dad told me what he believed happened to Valdivino, and I listened to him, incredulous.
Despite my best efforts and my allegations that it was inhumane to lock up an old, sick man, Dad was still imprisoned. The most I’d managed to achieve—because of the state of his health or his age or even because the authorities respected me as a journalist—was the special permission to pay him daily visits over the course of a week.
I had spent the day preparing for what would become my last visit with Dad. Like a monk seeking out divine truths, I leafed through the last pages of his “Onward” notebooks, the ones that narrated his activities in the months leading up to the inauguration of Brasília. Dad had written about his apprehension in regard to what Don Bosco had written in 1883: “When they excavate the hidden mines amid these hills, the promised land shall here appear, a land of milk and honey.”
“Only once they excavate the hidden mines, but they still haven’t excavated them,” wrote Dad. Perhaps he felt that it was up to him—less out of idealism than greed for gain—to help out with those excavations.
If one believes what’s in those notebooks, Dad had finally managed, at the beginning of 1960, to accompany some illustrious visitors. He bemoaned the fact that when President López Mateos of México visited, received by a big crowd, he hadn’t been able to accompany him, but soon after, on February 23, he had heard a speech by President Eisenhower in front of the Monumental Axis Highway: “Brasília has captured the imagination of my fellow countrymen who have visited here and who, on their return home, have been lavish in their praise of the wonders they have seen. For several reasons, Brasília fascinates the citizens of the United States . . . ” Together with the quote from Eisenhower was an article, ripped out of a newspaper and already yellow with age: sixty-seven people, almost all of them members of the U.S. Navy Band, had died when a U.S. Navy plane collided with a civilian aircraft near Sugarloaf mountain in Rio.
Reading through those papers, seated by the edge of the pool beneath a rose-colored sky, which was not intimidated by the gigantic increase in the size of the city, in the house that I was going to lose in just a few days, I felt the urge to rekindle the spirit of the founding of the “Modern Capital of the World,” as a professor from the University of Palermo had called it, the city that “for the inhabitants of the world” signified “hope and faith in the future,” as the filmmaker Frank Capra had professed, both of them quoted in Dad’s notebooks. I now looked upon that city like a child who is born into a situation of great promise, but can’t even manage to grow up to be as dignified as his parents, who becomes an outcast, b
ut who one day, through his own force of will, could live up to the calling that had given him life.
I had tried to differentiate myself from Dad, had asserted myself by denying him, and even by entering into open conflict with him, but I still recognized that I owed part of who I was to him, to all he had earned, and, now, to all he had lost—including my house by the lake, where I was leafing through those old papers. When I left home, I joined the student movement, was arrested, tortured, and, as a result of that, had a brief bout of insanity, and perhaps I would have followed another path if I wasn’t my father’s son, if Dad hadn’t bequeathed to me, during his lifetime, a portion of his wealth and secured for me the comfort that I am now losing, also because of him. It’s as if, as the Prophetess Íris Quelemém once said, we truly were just an ant on the horse’s hide, believing that we are winding our own way while it’s the horse that is really darting off in different directions, and yet here I am, now dreaming one dream of the future, now another, the world spins round, seemingly one place, then turning into another entirely. I left home on bad terms not only with Dad, but also with Aunt Francisca, because she didn’t believe what I was telling her about Dad and because she decided to marry him despite my warnings against it. The final straw, however, was an article I wrote and never brought myself to publish.
At that time, Dad’s business dealings had already extended to the wealthy areas of the capital, as had those of Aunt Francisca, who had earned quite a reputation with her cooking, which was considered sophisticated and was marketed as the traditional cuisine of Minas Gerais. I had grown as tall as Dad and was basically a grown man, adolescence had deepened my voice and turned me rebellious, just as it made me quieter: I had become reserved and serious. I had taken after Dad in one way: in my desire to record what was going on around me, believing that something grandiose was transpiring, but what I considered grandiose was the very thing he feared the most, that is, that same possibility of revolution that Aunt Matilde dreamed of. Nobody called the Free City “The Free City” anymore, and the “Pioneer Camp” had become transformed into a satellite city like many others. One day I walked up and down its main avenues, which were still the same as ever, I saw the façades of the old shops, I saw the few trees we’d planted still thriving in the backyard of our old house, which was vacant at that point, and afterwards I locked myself in my room with my books and papers, asking myself what I could make of the promise of the future of the little boy who had once lived there. I concentrated on my work, and nearly forgot to eat or sleep.