by Tahir Shah
“Sunday night, old people night, poppy!”
The next morning was the one that we had been waiting for. Leonardo was to take us to Ouro Preto... the city of Black Gold. His younger brother, Julio, turned up in an Italian sports car. He grinned incessantly and chortled “Shall I take you to see poor people? I know where some live!”
Leonardo told Ids brother to behave. We piled into the alcohol-run car and drove out of the city. Julio, a well-known parachute champion in Brazil, spoke about his narrow escapes.
Leonardo cut him short.
“Don’t talk to me about escapes, Julio! I decided to learn “cos you were getting all those girls,” he grumbled. “I turned up early in the morning. The instructor told me to wait as he was just going up to jump. I watched his plane go up and level off. Then a man in a black suit jumped out. He fell and fell. I watched, wondering when the “chute would open. He kept falling and went through the roof of a house. There was a terrible mess and they made me clear it up. That’s not very nice of them is it, amigo?”
We drove for several hours until signs for Rio de Janeiro came up on the highway. Leonardo, in his enthusiasm for the adventure, had driven in the wrong direction. It was nearly evening when we finally arrived at Ouro Preto.
The town was filled with churches and monuments. Ouro Preto had been the Portuguese colonial mountain base, where many Republicans had been executed. For it was there that the first Brazilian rebellion against the Portuguese was started. And, in the town square, the first martyr of the rebellion — the white bearded victim known as Tiradentes (“The Tooth-puller”) was savagely executed. Clothes and manacles for the infant slaves were on display in the Inconfidecia, a great baroque building, which is now the museum of Ouro Preto. At one time the home of the Municipal Congress, the building was started in 1748, but only completed in 1846.
Leonardo made sure that we commented on each item before moving to the next.
The architecture of Ouro Preto was staggering. Portugal’s most eminent artists and artisans worked for decades to construct the town’s dozen magnificent churches, and its fine public buildings. Perhaps the greatest virtuoso ever to toil at Ouro Preto was a crippled mulatto sculptor named Aleijadinho. Although unmatched in his sculptural talent, his own facial features grew ever more hideously deformed. The disfigurement, which were put down to his “diseased blood” was unfortunate, particularly as Aleijadinho lusted zealously after any woman he saw. As the deformity grew steadily worse, the maestro took to wearing a sack over his head, so as not to frighten away those who glanced at him. At last, as Aleijadinho lost all co-ordination, his assistants resorted to tying the hammer and chisel to his hands using leather thongs. But observers of Aleijadinho — Ouro Preto’s finest artist — said that as his outer ugliness grew more horrible, so the beauty of his sculpture increased.
Kiato had gone into a decline following the humiliation of Upstairs. He staggered about in the red leather outfit, moaning woefully, complaining of our “Ross of Face”. He seemed to take the episode so seriously that, for a moment, I had feared he would commit seppuku — Japanese ritual suicide.
Leonardo marched us up and down the cobbled streets with the ruthlessness of a Nazi leader. We felt obliged to follow, even when he stepped into an underground bar.
The owner of the tavern, who revealed himself to be a communist, ran off, asking us to take charge. He said there was a party at the other end of town. Julio sidled up to customers, taking their orders and mixing them exotic cocktails. He made up the prices as he went along, allowing those he liked to have drinks on the house. We were involved in several fights.
Time dragged by very slowly.
At three the next morning the communist returned. He led Kiato into a hidden vault and handed him a human skull in payment for our assistance. Leonardo — who was jealous — forced Kiato to return the skull, as he held the crucifix high in the air, with the words:
“This city of Black Gold can be dangerous! It has a history like that, burrito. Never take a skull from a stranger and you will live a nice life.”
Leonardo dragged us to Sao Paulo to see the shopping malls. At the bus station a family was huddled at the bottom of an escalator. They had come from the countryside with their belongings in a single smallish brown box. The father looked at the mother and they both scratched their heads. Why were the stairs moving? And since they were moving, how were people expected to get on? Kiato showed them how, as the mother choked with fright at the enormous complexity of simply climbing some stairs.
Leonardo marched us from one super deluxe concrete complex to another, demonstrating the modernity of Brazil.
“Brazil is a great country!” he shouted to make himself heard above Sao Paulo’s grating traffic. “This makes for a nice sightseeing doesn’t it, chap?” We agreed that it did as we were led onwards between the buses and cars to admire the city’s drainage system.
In a suburb of a suburb lived Thomas. He had studied with Leonardo, and invited us to meet his family. Sweet tea was poured and shortcake slices passed from one person to the next. Thomas had been lucky enough to study abroad with Leonardo, in Bournemouth. He spoke of that coastal town with reverence, as if it were a magical place filled with royalty and palaces.
“Ah, Baornemowth,” he said in a dreamy voice as if for those few months he had touched paradise. “I miss the Alcatraz disco. It’s where I met my fiancée.”
It seemed that Bournemouth was somehow an extension of Brazilian territory. All the Brazilian students I met had either come from or were going to Bournemouth.
Leonardo’s stepfather, Justo, had an apartment in Guaruja, a beach town near Sao Paulo. I proposed that we stay there for a few days to get out of the city. Leonardo supported the plan and we jumped on a bus.
The road to Guaruja passed through some of the world’s most dramatic and beautiful tropical scenery. One valley replaced another, mountains were overhung with creepers and rubbery plants. Wild birds, their beaks striped with color, squawked from the undergrowth and Kiato captured all he saw on film.
The road snaked around mountain passes, and waterfalls poured down either side. Then we drove down into Cubatao.
The sky was black with industrial smog. Rivers still flowed in abundance, but they ran in fluorescent, polluted greens and bright oranges. The trees had been felled and their stumps stretched for miles. There were no sounds of life save for the roaring of the turbines from the innumerable factories. Chimneys spewed noxious gases into the atmosphere, their bright colors mixed with the dense black pollution of death.
I stared in horror and was ashamed of even my own small share in the culture of the West. It reminded me of a book — by Dr. Seuss — called the Lorax, which I had read as a child.
Its story told of a land where Truffula trees grew in their thousands, Humming-Fish hummed and Bar-ba-loot bears played in the sunshine. This was paradise. But one day the Once-ler arrived. He chopped down a Truffula tree and knitted a Thneed. His Thneed sold.
Soon everyone wanted a Thneed. All the Truffula trees were chopped down and the Lorax appeared. He, as the spirit of nature, asked the Once-ler to stop. But the Once-ler cut down the last Truffula tree. He looked around to see the sky was polluted and the rivers clogged with mud; the Humming-Fish and the Bar-ba-loots had all gone. The land of the Lorax was destroyed, and looked exactly like what faced us now, in Cubatao.
I told the story of the Lorax to Leonardo, in the hope that he would understand the destruction of his countryside.
“What is those Thneeds, mate?” he said.
“Leonardo, don’t you realize that Brazil’s being destroyed. Look at all those chimneys out there!” I cried.
“But hombre, we have to pay our foreign debt,” he said. I pointed to the fluorescent green rivers and the throbbing factories which had created them, and shouted:
“Who owns all those monstrous processing plants, who the hell would be deranged and evil enough as to own factories like those?”
/> Leonardo stooped his head slightly, blushed, and said:
“My stepfather Justo does, Justo owns them.”
Kiato made sandcastles on the beach at Guaruja while helicopters passed high overhead — flying towards a string of private islands — like yachts moored offshore. A few miles away, in Cubatao, children are regularly born with brain damage. They live short painful lives in what is thought to be the world’s most polluted city.
The mansions on the private islands have their front windows pointing towards the ocean: so that the rich will not witness the poverty they create. I thought constantly of the Lorax whose land was destroyed by the greed of a Once-ler, for the lack of a Thneed.
Brazilians are well known for their willingness to have fun. Even so, some looked twice when they saw our group of three young men — dressed in fraying, sequined waistcoats and red leather pants — slouching on the beach.
Leonardo was now overcome with shame as my continual railing against the polluters took effect. His country’s beauty was being ravaged as day and night discotheques softened the population’s minds and shook the very foundations of city life. He stood up and rubbed at the patches of damp sand on his clothes, then walked off alone. Kiato and I returned to the apartment, sensing that we ought to leave Leonardo to himself Realising that it would be hard for such a person to come to terms with his nation’s troubles, I feared the worst.
An ant-like figure, viewed from the apartment window, moved with haste along the promenade of the beach two hours later. It made for our apartment block. I came away from the window as the door burst open. Leonardo, crippled with exhaustion, shrieked a few disjointed syllables before collapsing:
“Partee-ng, to-ga partee-ng!” He had seen several women, apparently wrapped tightly in togas, heading towards a downtown bar. Everyone, it was obvious — Leonardo swore — would be there.
“Such things is tradition in Guaruja!” he cried.
The Brazilian had obviously found it impossible to contemplate matters of a serious nature for long: matters of importance not only to him, but to all his countrymen.
Starched sheets were pulled from the beds and Leonardo wound the makeshift togas around each of us. I was reluctant to participate, locked in a somber mood.
Leonardo grinned and wet down his hair at the same time. Before I knew it, I, too, was soon wriggling about under the layers of white cloth. Like Kiato, I was bitter at the Brazilian for forcing us to wear our disco clothes underneath.
We walked down the dank corridors and the steep steps to the street. Another Brazilian night was under way. The metal tips of Leonardo’s alligator skin shoes from Miami clicked along. We stumbled forward — like three certified madmen in our white strait-coats — towards the toga party.
A strange darkness hung within the bar’s four walls. We shuffled inside in single file. It was then that I smelt a familiar odour: that of Mumbai’s local bin cigarettes. I made out a few syllables of Hindi being spoken at the bar. Leonardo pinched me and pointed. A group of women were lined up against one wall as if waiting for a firing-squad to arrive. Each was swathed in an embroidered saree; a red felt bindi was pressed onto each frowning forehead. They stared at us as we gaped back at them. Then they wobbled their heads from side to side in smiling admiration of our outfits.
Perhaps Leonardo’s mistake at taking a saree to be a toga was forgivable. He thought it very peculiar indeed that it was only the women who were wrapped in togas, while the men huddled in one corner in western dress. So he sidled up to the widest of the women and attempted to make polite conversation to put them at ease. Her saree was partly concealed beneath a voluminous navy trench coat, and a luminous pair of Reebok running shoes adorned her size ten feet.
Bowls of blancmange were brought by a gangling waiter. The large Indian lady tilted back her head and let a great quantity of the runny confection slide down her oesophagus. Kiato’s eyes bulged in amazement at the volume of her internal digestive tract. A little of the creamy blancmange dripped down the front of the lady’s navy trench coat. Rubbing the drops into the fabric, she whispered:
“Eat, my coat, eat!”
Leonardo dominated the small dance floor with carefully choreographed movements; made within the constriction of a tightly-wrapped bed sheet. He thrived on the attention of the Indian tour group, who had just arrived from Mumbai. That was, when we had convinced them that we were not eunuch transvestites. Kiato became pally with the wide lady in the trench coat. They told stories to each other. Kiato told her about Sumo, Japanese wresting, and his appreciation of it.
Then he admired a cornelian ring she was wearing. She twisted the silver band round on her finger.
“This is a magic ring,” she said. “It brings good fortune to any who wear it. For my whole life I wanted to come to Brazil, and now I have had my wish: see I am here!” She translated a faint Hindi inscription from the bezel:
Glory to he who holds me, luck and fortune to that one,
When I have aided you give me to another,
Let him benefit from my charm.”
Kiato touched the ring and closed his eyes. His fingers trembled as if they drew a magical force from the centre of the stone. The lady pulled the collar of her coat tight to her neck and said to him:
“My wishes have come true. I must now pass on this magic ring. Remember to respect the spell, then protection and wishes will be yours.”
Leonardo spun round and around like a cross between a whirling dervish and a Cossack dancer somewhat out of control. Each wall was lined with clapping spectators, whose applause echoed like thunder in the smoke-filled bar. Kiato felt guilty at taking the Indian lady’s ring, but she had forced it upon him. It was unlucky, she said, to keep it after it had done its work.
In this atmosphere of insanity — as we fumbled about in bed sheets — Leonardo gave the key of the apartment to a young couple. They said that they wanted to be alone. Leonardo’s head seemed to split in two as he howled with laughter.
The dancing continued and the wide lady removed her heavy coat and danced lambada with Kiato. My sequined waistcoat had become like a second skin, bonded by sweat. At five A.M. a bouncer threw us all out onto the street.
The clicking of the alligator shoes led the way back to the apartment. When the door was opened, Kiato was the first to enter. There was no sign of the young couple. There was no sign of anyone. The ornaments had been taken from above the fireplace, and all our bags were gone. The alligator shoes stopped tapping across the parquet and Leonardo stood motionless. I threw my bed sheet on the couch and sat beside it. Leonardo broke the silence:
“They were not from Guaruja, mates; local people are friendly.”
He sat next to me with his hands clasped about his ears. I patted him on the back, but deep down I knew that I could never forgive him.
It was not the fact that my camera had been stolen, nor that my saddle-bags were gone. But the thought of having nothing to wear but a set of fluorescent disco clothes, made my hands want to close around Leonardo’s neck. Kiato breathed on his wishing ring. I waited for our bags to spontaneously appear. They did not.
“It’s rucky,” Kiato began, “that I hid our passports and money before going out.” He held up the pouches of notes.
“Leonardo,” I said, “I’m sorry this has happened but I have to leave and go far from here.”
“Ret’s go to Algentina as soon as it gets right!” shouted Kiato. His words brought a glimmer of hope back to the depressed atmosphere.
“How can you, the dearest friends of my little cousin, ever forgive me?” asked Leonardo despondently.
Then, plucking the alligator shoes from his feet, Leonardo handed them to me at arm’s length. There was a faint smell of foot odour.
“Take these,” he said. “They are my most treasured possession. I don’t want forgiveness or pity, but just to be your friend.”
It was a miserable moment. I said that we could not leave our host and comrade barefoot as well as clad
in disco paraphernalia. He must keep the shoes. Besides they were far too small. He smiled broadly as if to cement our friendship, and the next morning we left for Argentina.
SIXTEEN
The Mountains of Blue Ice
Thus he taught them, Holy Lingo;
And his last words then he uttered —
Keep your promise to the Turtle,
To the River-Turtle Dame;
To the Gods I now am going.
The basin in our room at the Hotel Ushuaia, in Buenos Aires, was as long as a cattle trough. Crafted by Shanks of England, it reeked of an era when Argentina had been one of the richest nations on earth. Three beds were separated by pieces of mahogany furniture painted with cream gloss; a set of French windows opened out onto Avenida Córdoba and the bedspreads, with embroidered blue flowers, felt uncannily soft to the touch.
Kiato picked up the solid black telephone and ordered room service. His words ran down the line and a few moments later a lad in a pillbox hat knocked at the door.
We had traveled for days and nights on a journey where one bus had stopped when another had begun. Sequins and red leather, stained and sodden, still hung from our crippled forms.
Kiato sat in the basin and stared hard into the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot, and his manner was like that of an ex-convict, attempting to get to grips with freedom after a very long time.
Two days were spent lying on our backs and learning to adjust our spines from a chronic sitting position. Out of our hibernation we finally came, out into the bright sunshine of downtown Buenos Aires. My waistcoat was reversed to hide the motley sequin pattern. Kiato could not take the disapproving looks from every passer-by. His red leather disco outfit, which was more than torn and worn, smelt of many things, including long-distance bus terminals.
Scott Joplin’s tune “The Entertainer” permeated out from a large departmental store. The building’s long windows were filled with sophisticated costumes. Silk ties, tweed coats and an assortment of bags and cases — sculpted in the finest leather — had been artistically arranged. I looked up to see the name of this marvellous shop. It read quite simply: Harrods.