Heliopolis

by James Scudamore

  The regulations prohibiting imported goods have long since gone. And now that chefs can obtain saffron for their pilafs, bouquets garnis for their bourguignons and porcini for their risotti, the plates of the city’s diners are home to the real thing and not poor local approximations. It’s just a question of which restaurant is most likely to blow his mind.

  ‘It’s your first night in the gastronomic capital of the continent,’ I say. ‘And I have a generous expense account. So the question is, what would you like? We could hit one of the churrasco places, but this city also has some of the best Italian and Japanese restaurants on the planet—not to mention Lebanese, Portuguese, Indian, Korean, Spanish, French. Or if you’re looking for something a little simpler, they say that more pizza is eaten here some evenings than in the whole of Italy. Just say the word. I can get us a reservation anywhere.’

  He takes a pull on his cigar, and blows a thick, bottom-heavy smoke ring, the larger half of which dips down towards the table and lands like a toxic bomb in my glass of wine.

  ‘To be honest, I’ll have plenty of time to explore the city. For tonight I’d be happy just holing up here and ordering a club sandwich. What do you say?’

  My eyes glaze over and I take a big gulp of wine. ‘Of course.’

  I can’t bear to order one for myself, but I request the sandwich for him, hoping for his sake that he enjoys it.

  I try not to look at it when it arrives. I want to avoid the comparison. I don’t want to know whether this sandwich is better or worse than the one I remember, or the same. I just don’t want them connected. But simply by ordering it the Australian has barged in on the memory, and lashed himself to it.

  He gets drunker and more boisterous, and doesn’t touch the sandwich. To avoid thinking about it, I retreat further from him into the comfortably padded room of good red wine. As he talks on, my mind wanders, to the boy in the square this morning, to the man working the bathrooms downstairs, to Ernesto. To Melissa.

  ‘The problem with first-world markets is that clients are constantly trying to find new ways of discovering whether or not advertising actually works. Here, you know it works—I’ve seen what happens when a good campaign rolls out. The sales skyrocket. They treat us with the reverence of Romans before the Oracle. I love that.’

  As he talks, he picks up one quarter of the sandwich, gives it a critical glance, and takes a large bite, spilling much of what is left behind. Then, right in front of me, he dismantles the other three quarters, browsing their insides for wads of chicken breast, which he absentmindedly tosses into his mouth between puffs of his cigar, and leaving the rest.

  ‘What are you saying? That consumers over here are unevolved? Half-wits?’ I ask.

  He pauses mid-swallow, fearing he’s upset me.

  ‘Because I might have to agree with you.’

  He roars with laughter.

  ‘But you’ve hardly touched your sandwich.’

  He grimaces. ‘Tell you the truth, I eat a lot of club sandwiches, and this one isn’t that great.’

  It does look tired: limp lettuce, grey bacon, old bread. I feel exhausted just looking at it.

  ‘I feel we have let you down,’ I say. ‘There’s still time for us to get a table somewhere.’

  ‘I have a better idea.’ Stage whisper. Foul cigar breath. ‘How about a pick-me-up to help me get over the jetlag? That will soon take our minds off food, eh?’

  If he’s leaping right in like this it means that Oscar probably tipped him off. I feel like an errand boy, and am tempted to toss the bag on the table and leave him to get on with it, but I manage to keep my cool and lean back in my chair. It’s the first time in forty minutes that his conversational requirements can’t be met by a serious nod of the head or a conspiratorial chuckle of acknowledgement, so I make use of the opportunity to keep him quiet. I’d have expected this from a New Yorker, a Londoner. But an Australian? I thought they were meant to be clean-living—all yoghurt and fruit shakes and jogging.

  ‘You want cocaine?’

  Fearing he has misjudged the situation, he backtracks. ‘I don’t know. I mean, Oscar said—’

  ‘Of course.’ His smile returns. ‘You can find most things in a hotel like this.’

  He raises his glass. ‘Excellent.’

  ‘Just one thing,’ I say. ‘If you have a taste for drugs, you must be careful. It doesn’t do to get mixed up with the police in this city. They shoot first, and do not get as far as the questions.’ I drain my glass of wine, and stand up. ‘I will ask around.’

  What he wants is right here in my pocket, but I need some time away from him, and I can’t stop thinking about the sandwich. Things are bad enough for the hotel as it is without that kind of ingratitude. I feel I should offer the chef an explanation, which is convenient as the kitchen is probably just where he thinks I would go to get drugs. He’s probably read a magazine article trumpeting the virtues of the new fusion restaurants in the city, and is picturing fashionable young chefs boosting their culinary creativity with powders less wholesome than cassava flour. Never mind that the idea of barging into a crowded hotel kitchen and demanding drugs from a bunch of semi-geriatric second-generation Italians is laughable—I want to give him the impression that’s what I am doing. I leave the bar, cross the hotel lobby and enter the restaurant.

  It’s a barren, dessert-trolley sort of a place, fringed with foreign couples, and with one rowdy business dinner at the centre. I’m trying to work out where the kitchen is when our waiter comes in from the bar bearing the remains of the club sandwich, and I follow him through a set of swing doors.

  We enter a cramped, steamy kitchen, where a crackling radio plays bossa nova. Several large aluminium pans bubble away on the stove. One young chef is twisting and cutting small red sausages and dropping them into a pan. Another grates cheese. A third, older man is seasoning a huge sea bass, which must be for the businessmen outside. They’re in the middle of a joke and are laughing as the waiter enters, with me, unseen, on his tail.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I say to the waiter. ‘Can you tell me who made that sandwich?’

  The waiter spins round, then looks down at the tray in his hands, and back at me. ‘I beg your pardon, Senhor?’

  ‘That sandwich. I want to speak to the person who made it.’

  ‘Was there something wrong with it?’

  ‘Nothing at all. It was good. I just want to tell whoever made it that it is not being sent back half-eaten because it is unsatisfactory. The person who ordered it was not in a position to appreciate it, that’s all.’

  The waiter looks around him to see if anyone else is on hand to deal with this situation, before turning back to me. ‘Sir, you really shouldn’t be here. Guests are prohibited from entering the kitchen.’

  I shout over his shoulder at the chefs. ‘Whoever made that sandwich—it was delicious, OK? It was very, very good.’ They look up from their work in bewilderment.

  ‘Thank you, Senhor,’ says the waiter. ‘We appreciate the compliment. Now I must ask you to leave us.’

  ‘It was great! Hear me? It was a life-changing sandwich!’

  Red-faced, I burst back through the swing doors and into the restaurant. I should go down to the bathroom to cool off for a second before going back to the bar, but I can’t bear the thought of running into that attendant again.

  I stride into the bar, trying to contain my indignation. The Australian’s excitement is palpable from the doorway. His saddle-bagged thighs are trilling up and down like the fingers of a cocktail pianist. He’s probably high already on the excitement, and thanks to my warning about the police, the perceived danger of what is about to happen.

  I slap Oscar’s bag of powder into his hand, and say something cheap like, ‘Amazing what the well-equipped kitchen has in stock these days.’ And he’s off to the bathroom with a spring in his step. I picture him snorting and spluttering away down there, and pity the poor attendant in advance for his next client. Then I order a large whisky and try t
o get as much of it down as I can before he returns.

  He springs back into the bar after a while, beaming. There’s a white crust around one nostril. I motion for him to wipe it, and hand him a napkin.

  ‘Thanks,’ he says. ‘Not partaking yourself?’

  ‘Thank you, no.’

  ‘So, your boss, good old Oscar,’ he says. ‘Remarkable man. Very persuasive. Knows how to get a man motivated.’

  ‘He certainly does. He is skilled in the art of terrorism.’

  ‘Know what he told me about this city once?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said, “For seventy dollars, you can fuck someone who’s more beautiful than anyone you’ve ever fucked. But for two hundred dollars you can fuck someone who’s more beautiful than anyone you’ve ever seen.” That idea didn’t terrify me, I can tell you.’

  ‘Yes, that does sound like him.’

  He gives me an arch look. ‘Is it true?’

  I could feign incomprehension, but I can’t bear to open the door to more of his leering, unsuitable conversation. ‘So I am told,’ I say. ‘You’re interested?’

  ‘Is it an inappropriate request?’

  ‘Probably. Are you asking it anyway?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He almost looks bashful, then laughs.

  ‘You may have to give me a little time,’ I say, finishing my drink.

  ‘I’m going nowhere,’ he says.

  The belt of heat that strikes me outside the hotel is welcome, though I know I will soon be ready to retreat back into air-con. I head for a square at the foot of one of the city’s tallest buildings. During the day this area is respectable—the tower is open to the public, and tourists pay to go up it and attempt to take in the vast yellow forest of scraper-chaos that surrounds them—but at night, the plaza near its base is anarchic and alive. Everyone here is hustling in one way or another: the gold dealer standing with his ‘Buy’ or ‘Sell’ sign, his mouth and ears full of dodgy product; the apothecaries plying their witchy potions and rain-forest remedies from mobile stalls; the street performer who claims to have a cobra in a bag; the transsexual prostitutes loitering on the corners looking disarmingly stunning. Not one is what he seems. Not one can be trusted.

  I cross the plaza, fending off advances from two fortune tellers and a hooker, and head for the green light of an all-night pharmacy. The kid behind the counter is bored and sleepy, and after I have named a couple of brands they don’t have, he swivels his ancient black and white computer terminal in my direction so I can browse the stock myself. It doesn’t take me long to find what I’m looking for.

  On my way back across the plaza, I approach one of the transsexuals. S/he’s wearing long blue tights, gold shoes and a pink fur coat, from which juts a shelf of tanned, pumped-up cleavage.

  ‘Looking for something special?’ s/he says in a husky voice.

  ‘Not tonight,’ I say. ‘But I’ll buy your bra for fifty.’

  ‘Souvenir-hunter, huh? That sounds like easy money to me.’ The bra is whipped off in a swift movement and I proffer one of Oscar’s banknotes.

  ‘You don’t want to know what I would have let you do to me for that.’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t. Good night.’ I stuff the bra in my pocket and re-enter the hotel.

  ‘Sorry about the delay,’ I say.

  ‘I hardly noticed you’d gone. I’ve been getting stuck into that stuff since you left.’ He’s squirming around, taut-mouthed and goggle-eyed. ‘I think people might be wondering what I’m up to. They keep staring at me when I go to the bathroom. Any luck?’

  ‘It took time to find someone nice. But she will join you in your hotel room later.’

  ‘Lovely,’ he says, thrashing about in his chair as if he were tied to it.

  Several hours later, I’m picking around the Australian’s bathroom while he lies face down on the bed in the next room, snoring. At my suggestion, we brought a bottle of Johnnie Walker up to the room, and while he was getting excited about his visit from the call girl I slipped enough crushed-up Temazepam into his drink to counteract the cocaine. It wasn’t as easy as it looks in the movies—a conspicuous white residue clung to the inside of the glass—but he was so drunk he didn’t notice, and even requested a refill that washed down the dregs. He will be out cold for hours, but now that I don’t have to talk to him, I’m in less of a hurry to get home.

  It’s a well-appointed suite: the bathroom shelves heave with lotions, oils and creams. There is even a special dish next to the bidet with a bottle of something unbranded on it, called ‘Intimate Cleanser.’ I unscrew the lid, sniff it briefly and replace the bottle. His wash bag bulges with a great stockpile of Australian contraceptives (clearly he has grand plans), bright vitamin supplements that look like they are designed for kids, protein powders and mists and lens solutions. I go back into the room, unhook the phone, and dial Melissa’s number.

  ‘Do you know what time it is?’ she hisses.

  ‘I wondered how the crab linguine went down.’

  ‘I can’t talk now.’

  ‘I bet you overcooked the pasta, didn’t you?’

  ‘Ludo, I have to go.’

  ‘You shouldn’t give linguine longer than five minutes, especially if you’re keeping the heat on when stirring in the sauce.’

  ‘I’m putting the phone down now.’

  ‘Did he eat it all? I bet he did—’

  ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Wait. I didn’t tell you. I saw someone get shot after I left you this morning.’

  The phone is dead.

  I stand at the window. The city lights spin off kaleidoscopically in every direction. My head reels.

  Looking down to see powder chopped out on the TV I decide to have some for the journey home, and one quick jolt becomes two or three. I bounce round the room, relishing the sparkle in my synapses, the sudden commotion in the front of my brain. I turn on the TV to see if it wakes the Australian up. Nothing—my work is finished.

  I am twenty, talking to Zé. We’re having a nightcap together, on the farm, and he’s come over all patriarchal, imparting wisdom.

  ‘Cocaine is a good business,’ he says, circulating his brandy balloon. ‘Know why? Because it has a very high value-to-bulk ratio. It’s like gold. Or fur.’

  ‘And how would you know about that?’ I ask.

  ‘I don’t, of course,’ he says immediately. ‘But I can see why these people take the risk. The payoff makes it worthwhile. Good night.’

  ‘And good night to you, mate,’ I mutter to the comatose Australian, heading for the door. As I touch the handle I feel a warm trickle down my upper lip. Oscar, it seems, needs a better supplier.

  I go back into the bathroom, and linger by the mirror, fascinated by the sight of the blood. Instead of applying tissue to my nose, I pick up the Australian’s glass, which I have carefully washed, from its paper coaster by the sink, and let the blood accumulate in it drip by drip. I don’t know what I had planned to do with the transsexual’s bra—leave it in the bed, perhaps, to confuse him—but the nosebleed has given me a nastier idea.

  I begin to feel guilty as soon as I leave the hotel. He’s not all bad, the poor guy. It must have been hard for him to be bundled away from here as a teenager and taken to a strange new country just because his parents didn’t get on. I know also that when you work internationally like he does, your job is simply to oil the hamster wheel, to keep your subordinates working hard and reassure your bosses that things are going well without doing anything yourself. Who can blame him for wanting to let off steam? I shouldn’t care how fucked-up an evening he wants to have.

  But that prostitute he wanted could have been my mother. And the mistake he might have made, if his trusty foreign Australian prophylactics had failed him—and from which he would have walked away just as casually as he discarded the remains of his club sandwich—that mistake could be another me.

  The taxi I hail stinks of fried food, and its seats bear the patched-up wounds of many years’ ser
vice. For security, the window can’t be wound down more than a couple of inches, so I sit with my face pressed to the aperture, enjoying the blast of hot wind in my face like a dog smelling its way home, the blood drying to grit in my nose. Without consciously deciding to, and even though it is nowhere near my apartment, I direct the driver to the square with the fountain in it.

  ‘I was here this morning,’ I say when we arrive. ‘A boy got shot.’

  The taxi driver shrugs. ‘It happens. If you’re a paulistano you have to confront a little reality every once in a while.’

  ‘It is my experience that we paulistanos try to avoid reality at all costs,’ I say.

  I ask him to park and wait. After some discussion and the promise of a good tip, he consents.

  The cool blue of the evening and the deserted streets make it feel different than the blindingly hot spot where the boy and I danced around each other this morning. The fountain seems less substantial, and the square is defined more by the shadow of the tower blocks and the sharp angles of the invulnerable ATM kiosk than by its past life. It seems so different that initially I think I have made a mistake, that it is a different place. Then the two stone benches emerge from the shadows, and I find the wound in the palm tree, scabbed over already with smog-darkened resin. I recall the boy’s eyes, gaping and pleading as the realisation struck of the danger he was in. There’s no police tape round the spot where he fell; clearly the authorities have all the information they need. Where the dark pool of blood was this morning, the pavement has been scrubbed clean so that the mosaics gleam. Only this cleanliness shows that anything happened here at all—that, and the gash in the tree.

  You obviously never wondered where your next meal was coming from, or there’s no way you could be doing this.

  I reach into Ernesto’s shirt pocket, take out the wax flower petals I made at the hotel, and toss them at the base of the tree, where they break into fragments.

  Apart from the jungle balcony and a bathroom, my apartment is contained in one room. I have a pull-down bed, a shelf of books, a computer on a desk and not much else. The kitchen is the one area where I have made modifications to the studio setup, and am properly equipped. I threw out the primitive gas ring that was here when I moved in and installed an oven of quality. I also brought in much of my mother’s old equipment from the farm kitchen, including its antique, gas-powered refrigerator, which Zé had shipped here at my request. It dominates the room and makes constant noise, whirling and churning and gasping and sighing, but the sound comforts me, and the idea of throwing it away is heartbreaking.