I thrash about, wrestling these indelicate thoughts. I want to cry out, but fear it might attract the wrong kind of attention. So I try biting the sackcloth and edging it up my face to get back my eyes. But the blindfold is too tight, and gravity is against me. I need a free hand to wrench away this rank cloth from my face. The anticipation of that moment of freedom gives me the impetus to suppress any fears of harming myself and I start rocking the chair from side to side until one plastic leg buckles and I fall sideways. With no sight and no arms to stop it happening, I crack my shoulder hard against the ground. I curl on the floor in the shape of my chair-prison, lashed in a right angle; a shape convulsing with belts of hot pain.
Coming to terms with the floor takes time. There are new smells (that mango is still lying around somewhere, along with whatever they replaced it with), and new sensations to contend with. The shoulder pain cools after much cursing, and some crying, but the dull throb in my jaw persists. Movement of that arm must be kept to a minimum, but I have to get the restraints off somehow. I kick around the floor in a circle, pulling at the wire in every direction, and gasping when the shoulder is touched, but with no success. Eventually I force myself to relax and close my eyes, and I lie with one cheek to the floor, trying to calm down.
Bang.
What sounded like a pistol shot brings me round with a start. Somehow, I fell asleep. I try to return to consciousness slowly, willing my pounding heart to slow down. The shot sounded close, but I hear nothing else.
I stare into the darkness and my mind wanders. It lingers on those two words, spoken by Milton.
Photographic evidence.
That photograph of me, newborn, with my mother and Rebecca is part of the furniture I grew up with. The mythology of Rebecca’s visit to Heliópolis is so hard-wired into me that I have never thought to question it. But now, lying on the floor, lashed to a chair with electrical wire, the picture appears before my eyes. I look at it properly for once, in my head—at the black and white smile that I have understood to be the defining moment in my life for as long as I can remember. And suddenly I know that I have to get out of here somehow. Because I recognise the background to the picture. I know the room where it was taken.
And it is not in a favela.
I begin to calculate how to get to my feet, so I can circle the room with the chair still attached and try to find a way out. But just as I start to move I hear a sound from the opposing corner of my prison; a scratching, shuffling sound, too loud for an insect, too soft for anything bigger than a rat. If I can get it to come over here, perhaps coat some of the wires in blood to get it to gnaw through them, I could get out, I could get this bag off my head and scratch my scalp and scream and see and plunge my head into clean water. But how do you entice a rat to cross a stinking floor and gnaw wire from your wrists when ripe mango and rotten mango substitute and God knows what else already litter the place? The wire will not appeal, but my flesh might. I begin rubbing my wrists against the grit of the floor, to try and break the skin, to get some smell going for the rat to follow.
‘Come on, boy,’ I say, still cartwheeling in the dirt. ‘Get over here. Who wants mango when you could have wrist flesh? I’ll let you chew on my skin like sun-dried beef. Come on, rat. Eat me, rat.’
‘Are you talking to me?’ says a voice. The girl. The sound was no animal, but her quietly opening the door. ‘Because I don’t like being called rat.’
At the sound of the voice I sob, and relief buckles my body. ‘Help me.’
‘My God. What have they done to you? I could tell it was something bad by how much they were laughing. You stink.’
I hear her crossing the room.
‘Get this thing off my head. Get it off now or I might go mad.’
‘Stay still.’
I feel her hands grabbing the sack where it bunches tight, at my ears. A wave of her scent—a clean, feminine smell. The hands grasp, and pull upwards, and my head is stripped clear, and the world returns. Light streams into my eyes. Morning light. Have I been here all night? My mouth snatches at cool air. I grind my hair into the grit of the floor, imagining lice, insects, maggots, wanting to mince them all, to lather my scalp with gravel.
‘OK, OK,’ she says, cutting off my scream of relief. ‘You’re OK now.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Nearly eight.’
I look around at my cell, which is not nearly as squalid as I imagined, with its red floor, its clean, concrete walls, its small glassless window. I catch sight of the piece of mango on the floor, and stop looking around. I don’t want to know what the second object was.
‘Can you get up?’ she says, and I look at her face for the first time.
‘Don’t cry,’ I say. ‘I’m not that badly hurt.’
She slaps me, sending a shot of agony through my jaw. ‘I’m not crying for you, you idiot. Some traficante pistol-whipped my brother. He came back a couple of hours ago with a massive cut and bruise under his eye. And on top of that Flávia went crazy at him for hanging out with those people. Like he needs that after what he’s been through.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘You must have some pretty important friends,’ she says, with contempt. ‘Milton told me you were here, and that I should let you go straight away.’
‘Why didn’t he come himself?’
‘Does it surprise you to hear that he doesn’t want to see you?’
‘Does Flávia know I’m here?’
‘She doesn’t know anything. And you’re not to tell her. That boy has had enough trouble without her beating him up over you as well. Sweet Mary, the smell of you.’
I look into her face, the black pools of her eyes, and smile, swaying, the pain in my shattered shoulder and my jaw, the bites on my leg—all forgotten.
‘Not in a million years,’ she says. ‘And certainly not today. Get out of here.’
Stumbling, I follow her through the twisting maze of alleys, breathing sweet morning air, blinking in the light, and feeling the sun on my face. She says nothing, and drops back behind me. When I turn to thank her at the outskirts of the favela, she has gone.
I stagger, reborn, on to the street.
I am twenty-seven. For once I am early for work. Hugging my arms around my battered body, I walk past the clay football pitch, staring dully at the rubbish heap behind the ramshackle goal posts.
On a wall, pasted over innumerable faded old images, is a poster advertising a party tonight to celebrate the launch of MaxiBudget—to take place at the Beehive, round the corner.
My shoulder is bleeding, my chest hurts with every breath I take, I have lost a shoe, and I am covered in urine and vomit.
I feel OK.
I should go home, but the office is closer. Never have I been so glad to see the restored block, the security gates that encircle it, or the avocado tree behind the gates, its branches sprawling like splayed tentacles over the road. I feel automatically in my pocket for my entry pass.
‘May I help you, Senhor?’ The guard’s voice is metallic through the microphone that enables him to remain safely behind bulletproof glass. Unless you’re a cleaner, arriving on foot is suspicious. The guards let me into the car park every day, but they don’t know me—they only know my car.
‘Good morning, er . . . who is this? I can’t see you.’
‘Can I help you?’ the voice repeats. ‘The party isn’t until tonight. Come back later. Good day.’
‘I work here. But as you can see, I’ve had an accident. I have been mugged, and held hostage. My name is Ludo dos Santos—you can check it on the register.’
A small aperture in the window shoots open, enough for me to see the guard’s face. He’s someone I haven’t seen before, possibly a new employee. Though I’m not sure I’d even recognise one of the regulars—I drive past and wave at the glass each morning without seeing the person behind it.
‘If you haven’t got a pass I can’t let you through.’
‘I know how I look,
but I’m an employee of this company.’
‘I am paid to let people in when they have a security pass. And not to let them in when they do not. If I may say so, you don’t even look fit to clean the building. And you stink,’ he adds, helpfully.
‘If you call my boss, Oscar Cascavel, he’ll tell you that I work here.’
‘I’m not calling anyone.’
‘Please! I have been kidnapped.’
‘Come on, Senhor, you’re going to have to do better than that. I’ve been a doorman for years. There’s no story you can tell me that I haven’t heard before.’
‘Just let me in.’
‘No way. Now you need to leave before I get my gun out, OK?’
‘You’re going to get your gun out?’
‘If I have to.’
‘You’re going to get your gun out.’
‘There. What did I tell you?’
I’m staring down the barrel of an automatic pistol, which is poking through a tiny aperture in the security glass.
‘Please leave now,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to have to shoot you.’
I stumble through the morning air, noting the song of starlings and the bright green flash of a parakeet above my head, until I somehow manage to blag a pay phone token from a person in the street. Huddling under the shelter of the phone’s giant ear, I dial Oscar’s office number.
‘Ludo dos Santos. This is early in the morning for you. You haven’t been to bed, have you? Where the hell have you been? Getting fucked up again?’
‘I was kidnapped. In the favela. They tied me up.’
He laughs. ‘That’s the best one yet. Now get in here, you can explain it to me later. We’ve got lots on. The party is happening tonight, and your family are all coming.’
‘You’ll have to send someone down to let me in. The guard wouldn’t because I lost my pass.’
‘Good for him. They’re under strict instructions not to let anyone in without one.’
‘As I told you—I got mugged. They took my wallet. I don’t look very good.’
Oscar sighs. ‘You really are hopeless, Ludo. If it wasn’t for your father . . . I’ll send someone down.’
The guy waiting behind the gates—one of Oscar’s minions, an up and coming executive—is smirking before I even reach the door.
‘Good morning Ludo—the boss told me you had a heavy night last night, but my God! You look as bad as I’ve ever seen you. Is that vomit? What happened to your face?’
‘Thank you,’ I murmur, tripping on the step as I am buzzed in through the gates.
My glare is met with silence from behind the smoked glass.
The receptionist looks up in alarm, ready to press her panic button, until she recognises me.
‘Wow, Ludo. I can’t wait to hear about this one,’ she says. ‘Did you get into a fight?’
‘I’ll tell you all about it as soon as I’ve had a shower.’
I had hoped to make it through the corridors relatively unscathed, but obviously Oscar has been doing the rounds, and the route to my office is lined with people who have come out to witness this supposedly catastrophic hangover—there are even cheers and applause as I walk towards my office door.
The building seems lighter than usual, the graffiti art more vivid than ever. The wave of good humour and hilarity slumps as I pass by and those thronging the corridors are able to smell me. I get through as quickly as I can, and close the door on a crowd whose mood is rapidly curdling from one of amusement to one of quiet disgust.
The message light is flashing on my phone.
I push the button, and listen as I peel off my stiff, congealed shirt, bunch it and throw it in the bin.
Message One: Oscar, yesterday. Where the fuck are you? Listen, this party’s happening. We’ve got all the food and drink lined up and we’ve leafletted the whole favela. I think it could be good, and I want you to throw yourself into it. Come and find me the second you get this.
Message Two: Melissa, today. Good morning! I wanted to get you nice and early so that I could be the first to say: Happy Birthday!
Call me. I’m going to be seeing you at this party tonight. As it’s Ernesto’s job as well as my parents’ shining new project, not to mention your office, I suppose I’m going to have to be there several times over.
Also, listen: I know you told Ernesto the truth about . . . things. And I wanted to tell you that it was brave of you to do that. And that it helped. I think we’re going to be fine.
Anyway, call me. I love you.
Christ. It’s my birthday.
PARTY FOOD
I am twenty-seven.
No, I am twenty-eight.
My God, has it been that long?
I take a long shower, then I hide in my office for an hour, licking my wounds. Finally I venture outside, naked from the waist up, to buy a cold Coke. The vending machine sits in an alcove that, beneath its fixing resin, bears the blood spray of a heroin injection administered during the building’s previous existence. I collect a fresh shirt from the company stockpile and return to my office, then pour Coke in a glass and dilute it with cachaça, drinking enough to take myself one step back from recent experience. Barring what was fed to me in the favela I haven’t eaten since yesterday lunchtime, but for some reason my hunger has died. I remove the foul shirt from its plastic wrapping and put it on, and after some more drink and a couple of strong painkillers I start to feel better. Even with my attendance record I would be justified in taking the afternoon off today, but there’s no point in going home only to have to come back again later.
Tonight is the night. The agency is buzzing with it.
We often hold parties in celebration of the acquisition of new pieces of business, but this one is different. We have never opened our doors like this. Tonight, everyone comes together, those who will work on the project, those who have developed it, and those who will benefit from it.
I am looking over some concepts Oscar has left in my office, getting to grips with the work and squirming against the office shirt, when Flávia’s head appears in my doorway. She’s not wearing her shapeless smock, but a cream-coloured dress that must be her Sunday best. Mindful of our last conversation, I steel myself for a frosty encounter, but her mind seems to be elsewhere. She looks exhausted—which is not surprising given what happened in her home last night.
‘You look smart,’ I say.
‘You look terrible,’ she says. ‘I thought I had a bad night.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘You don’t want to know. My useless, good-for-nothing son. His first night home after the shooting, and he gets into a fight with some bad-boy gang member. He can’t help it. It’s like he wants to destroy himself, just like his father. What happened to you?’
‘Nothing I didn’t deserve.’
As I’m speaking, she plucks my rubbish bin from the floor to empty it into her sack, and stares in horror at the solid lump of shirt it contains.
‘Lord Almighty. This is not what I’m paid to clean up. Didn’t I tell you to stop drinking? This is just the sort of crap that killed my husband.’
‘I haven’t been drinking. I got attacked.’
‘You have to be so careful in this city,’ she says, shaking the bin several times until the shirt drops like concrete into her sack. ‘It’s a war zone out there. Who did this to you?’
‘Don’t be too hard on your boy,’ I say, wincing with the pain in my chest as I lean back in my chair. ‘These situations happen without anybody wanting them to. You can’t control it. You get drawn in.’
‘Then you have to fight to get away!’ she says, raising her voice and gesticulating with the bin. ‘Swim against the tide, rather than letting it take you. Don’t be lazy. That’s what I say to Milton, not that it makes any difference.’
‘It’s good advice. I’m sure he will heed it one day.’
She makes a face that is both disgusted and very sad. ‘I don’t want to talk about him. Stupid boy. I want to look
forward to my party. I haven’t been to a party in ages.’
Amazingly, in spite of what has happened, she still seems to be in a good mood, animated at the prospect of attending an office event for once rather than cleaning up after it.
‘That girl I met when I came to the favela. She’s your daughter?’
‘No. She has the same father as Milton, but a different mother. I take care of her.’ She pauses in the middle of setting the bin back down, and looks at me. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No reason. Just interested.’
‘It’s not more survey stuff? I warned you about that.’
‘Of course not. It’s just friendly interest.’
‘OK then. See you at the party. If you’re lucky I might even dance with you.’
She giggles at her own remark in a way that makes me beam at her big, retreating back. My jaw hurts.
It’s Friday night. A beautiful pollution sunset bathes the city in pinks and reds and oranges that glint in shards off the skyscraper glass. Helicopters take to the air like fat flies, shuttling the rich to their weekend homes. But one helicopter won’t be heading out of town tonight, not yet, at least. It has a social obligation first, here in the city. Tonight, my twenty-eighth birthday will be celebrated at a party launching a new subsidised supermarket scheme for the poor. Zé Generoso, its architect, will be there, as will its inspiration, his wife, Rebecca. Flávia will be there, representing the grassroots of the project, its target. There is every possibility that her son Milton will also be in attendance. Oscar will be there, trying to impress Zé. Ernesto will be there, fretting about any one of twenty things. Melissa will be there.
Lighting rigs and a backlit stage lend shallow glitz to the reception area, which has also been decked out with the preliminary executions of the new campaign printed on large plastic boards. Our aeroplane-wing reception desk has been decorated to resemble a chrome supermarket shelf, doubling as part of a long buffet bar. Women totter on heels and men preen in suits, waiting to put on a show. Zé Generoso himself is coming. And as usual, his generosity will know no bounds. Anyone from the local favela is invited to come in and have a drink and something to eat, so that they can be briefed about this thing that is coming to change their lives.
Heliopolis Page 24