The Mystery of Rio

by Alberto Mussa

  Aniceto did not even try to escape, hoping to avoid getting charged. After all, the man had fallen on the chair, spattering the capoeira’s jacket all over with blood. Aniceto was also taken to the police station.

  The crowd huddled in front of the house included the fine Colombo clientele. They did not know quite what had happened, and they applauded the adulterers and jeered the industrialist, noisily shouting, “Here comes the cuckold!” A few minutes later, though, there were plenty of embarrassed faces as they saw the corpse being carried out, its skull shattered.

  The case would have proceeded unexceptionally except for the behavior of the woman, which mortified the police. Still in the bedroom when they went to arrest the capoeira, she threw herself on the officers, scratching and biting them and trying to prevent them from taking Aniceto away. She cried hysterically all the way to the police station, saying he was innocent, demanding that he be freed. She had to be restrained when Aniceto was taken away to jail, and she screamed and let it be known that she would pay for her lover’s lawyer.

  Forensics made quick work of their investigation, and concluded that the woman acted alone. The police captain, however, tried to lay the groundwork for another version:

  “All you have to do is give your statement, and I’ll arrange something with forensics. Just say he smashed your husband’s head with the saint.”

  The offer was made in the presence of the killer’s lawyer, shortly after the woman’s arrival at the precinct. Her reaction was to cause another scandal, saying she would leak the setup, demanding the presence of journalists.

  Appalled by the heiress’s attitude, and with no good argument to challenge her detention, the defense lawyer began instead to represent Aniceto, as per her orders, with great success. According to Article 279 of the Penal Code, the crime of adultery was a private matter, and there had been no complaint.

  The idea, which someone floated, that he could be framed for vagrancy also went nowhere. Article 399 was clear: despite not practicing the profession of typesetter, he had a livelihood, as the law prescribed, for he had converted his inheritance from Fortunata into bonds, which gave him an income, albeit a modest one.

  Aniceto, thus, was freed, though not before meeting with Baeta again. The expert wanted to do a “reconstruction” of the crime committed at the townhouse. Nobody criticized him for excessive zeal; nobody saw this as personal. Baeta wanted to intimidate the capoeira.

  “I have no idea how a woman like her can get involved with a lowlife like you.”

  Aniceto thought it very funny.

  “Women are very strange, boss.”

  And it was really very strange—a streetwise thug from the hills, with barely a grade school education, raised amid capoeiras and drummers, snagging himself such a wealthy lover.

  And Baeta, who had admired the industrialist’s wife and saw her as one of the great beauties of Rio, began to reflect seriously on that mystery and that power.

  So much so that, days later, while walking down Favela Hill, after finally being dumped by the flag-bearer, Baeta could not get one name out of his head: Aniceto.

  Adultery is not, of course, a Rio institution in the chronological sense. Nor are its origins specific to any one city, or to a specific people. In fact, this notion is what differentiates us as modern humans from Australopithecus, Pithecanthropus, Java men, Homo erectus, and Neanderthals.

  In the history of cities, however, though it is never absent, its importance varies. Cities like Beijing, Jerusalem, Timbuktu, or Calcutta are not remembered for their cases of adultery. The same cannot be said about Paris or San Francisco and certainly not of Rio de Janeiro.

  At least eight thousand years ago, a group of highly skilled sailors approached the Rio de Janeiro coastline. These original inhabitants (called “Sambaquis,” and, later, “Itaipus”) were a seafaring people, peaceful and fond of leisure, but completely dominated by the spirit of risk-taking.

  At the time, the sea level was much lower, so neither the coastal outline nor the natural landscape was the same. But it was Rio de Janeiro, nonetheless.

  These first arrivals—about a dozen men, women, and children—were not pioneers, but rather fugitives. Living in an anarchic society, devoid of the concept of property, the only crimes possible in the world of the Sambaquis were incest, to which they had an overwhelming aversion, and adultery. The founders of Rio de Janeiro were fleeing this last crime: half of the Sambaquis’ wives had been stolen.

  We know little about them, but what is certain is that they prospered. Archaeologists have been fascinated by their delicate ornaments made from shells and bones. In this book, they will be remembered as inventors of Carioca literature.

  It is said that the Itaipus were of the sea, but they also learned to exploit the rivers. Thus, since they always preferred water, they never made great expeditions into the depths of the forest, and considered the mountains to be the limits of the physical world.

  However, it was sometimes necessary to pick fruit, find new mangroves or streams, and maybe catch some small animal. This was a dangerous adventure, because the forest was inhabited by evil and mysterious spirits who had a penchant for pursuing women and embarrassing them into practicing shameful acts.

  Life involved certain strictures: just as fishermen preferred to go at it alone (except when they went out onto the high seas in search of xaréu), groups that entered the woods, mostly women, sought not to spread themselves too thin or travel too far into the thickets.

  Occasionally, however, a woman would disappear only to reappear a few hours later. In the evenings around the campfire, gathered around a shell mound or under an overhanging rock, or on a sand dune, they would tell amazing stories, in which virgin girls were impregnated by water snakes, or wives were seduced by salacious lizards.

  This tradition did not disappear with the Itaipus. In fact, invaders coming by land or by sea kept repeating the same legends. The invaders belonged to two great nations of fierce warriors. They arrived at about the same time, some three thousand years ago, and they had so many differences that they hardly ever intermarried. Their laws concerning adultery were also in conflict.

  The first ones, from the Unas Nation—ancestors of the Puris, or “the crowned ones,” and of the Goitacás, to a lesser extent—failed to prevail for very long in the city of Rio. Though much given to games and competitions of strength and dexterity, they took a very serious view of things, and were very attached to their social hierarchy and rigid customs. Not surprisingly, they considered adultery a serious offense, a question of character.

  The individual caught in the act was beaten terribly by the betrayed partner, with no right to self-defense.

  Often, such punishments were applied with war clubs, which could be lethal.

  Thus, the invaders who remained were those of the sea, those of the Tupi nation—ancestors of the enemy tribes that, in historical times, called themselves Tamoios and Temiminós, or “grandparents” and “grandchildren.”

  Lovers of art, good food, good drink, and plenty of revelry, the Tupi had developed a philosophy of contradiction and absolute celebration of life, whose ultimate expression was the cannibalistic rite wherein the enemy was transformed into the redeemer.

  The Tupi were compulsorily happy—so much so that they only cried when receiving good news.

  In cases of adultery, though wives were entitled to create an uproar, husbands would play dumb to avoid disagreements. But at the next feast—when they would drink plenty of the famous cassava beer—one or more men would go on a rant and pummel the unfaithful woman. The ancient Tupi in Rio de Janeiro would take revenge on their women only if they were drunk.

  In the 16th century, two more savage hordes joined the Tupi: the French, who built a fort on the island of Serigipe in 1555, with the endorsement and assistance of Tamoios, and the Portuguese, who considered themselves owners of the lan
d, and who with the help of the Temiminós managed to gain definitive dominion over the city in 1567.

  This period was one of tremendous wars, and culminated in the defeat of the Franco-Tamoian coalition, which was forced to withdraw into the high mountains of the interior. Thus the Temiminós—hitherto most populous in the bay’s eastern rim—moved into Carioca territory, and even mixed with the remaining Tamoios.

  The Europeans—both the Portuguese and the French—though deeply attached to their superstitions, assimilated much of Tupi culture. For example, having come from a strictly monogamous society, they adopted indigenous polygamy—which, according to their laws, would have constituted a crime.

  This ambiguity is typically Carioca: every relationship between Tupi women and European men was both legal and illegal. Rarely did this happen the other way around; Tupi men found European women very repulsive.

  Thus, the first mamelucos of Rio de Janeiro appeared, resulting from the Tupi women’s acceptance of French and Portuguese men. From their fathers they inherited the notion of the willful lie and a very buoyant sense of honor, born of the asymmetries and antagonisms of the city, which sometimes led them to punish adultery by death, as specified by the ordinances of the kingdom and the ancient traditions of the Unas.

  This did not, however, diminish the impulse to commit adultery. As a matter of fact, Hector Furtado de Mendonça, Visitator General of the Holy Office in Brazil, declined to come to Rio de Janeiro in 1591 because (according to a letter by the Rio de Janeiro Prelate to the Bishop of Bahia), “under the maximum influence of the tropics, judging by the amount of fornication and concubinage that goes on, it is feared that the venerable priest will order us to burn the whole city down.”

  Naturally, there was another encounter between the expert Baeta and the seducer Aniceto, which is vital for the continuation of the story. The scene takes us back to the beginning, to the House of Swaps. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to describe it in detail.

  The building, of palatial dimensions, was built and decorated by artists of the French Mission. It is almost a two-story quadrilateral, subdivided into halls, rooms, corridors, and chambers that communicate with each other via any number of doors, arcades, and passageways.

  I described it as almost a quadrilateral because its architects, in designing the rear facade, rather than tracing a line parallel to the front facade, instead gently inserted, at about the one-tenth mark from each corner, two curved walls projecting outward, which then again resolve into straight lines, but are interrupted anew, this time by a large protruding semicircle. This appendix, spanning both floors, is incorrectly labeled as the “oval halls.” It is, in fact, the building’s true entrance.

  Therein lies the genius of the building, whose form discovers the character of those who inhabited it. The side seen from the street, while classic and elegant, does not have the grace of the rear façade in three planes, which overlooks the garden, and whose intimacy is invisible to passersby because of its position behind a wall of leafy trees.

  A visitor entering the lobby would head straight to the imposing staircase, which, after reaching a half landing, divided into two flights, one to the right and one to the left, leading to the second floor. All of this was lit by a huge skylight with a stained-glass dome.

  It was below this staircase, across from the oval room on the first floor, that the exit (or entrance) to the secret tunnel was located, excavated to connect the Marquise’s House to the Quinta da Boa Vista Palace. It was in this tunnel that Dr. Zmuda created an impromptu wine cellar. And this was the wine cellar where the prostitute Fortunata took the bottle of wine on the day of the secretary’s death.

  As I already mentioned, all illicit activity took place upstairs, therefore it is there that our story resumes.

  On that day, the House of Swaps was receiving couples. To provoke the senses—and ensure confidentiality—light was kept at a minimum, except for the natural light from the skylight, and a few gaps in the curtains allowing in a faint stream from the street. Pairs arrived in cabs or rented carriages. As per the rules, the drivers were instructed to leave immediately. The housemaid, an inconspicuous girl, stood in the garden in front of the iron stairs leading to the second floor with a candle in hand as she greeted the visitors.

  When Baeta arrived with his wife, Guiomar, it was still early. They followed the receptionist up the stairs to the oval room. It was there that the guests were prepared before entering into the house proper.

  The expert and his wife stripped naked, handing their clothes to the girl with the candle, who placed them behind a folding screen so as not to be recognized by others. He donned a robe, and she a slightly sheer tunic, in the style of a Greek maenad.

  Although there were rare exceptions, Madame Brigitte and Dr. Zmuda preferred that couples always kept their identities concealed in public spaces. To that end, they provided guests with special hoods of very soft silk, reminiscent of the executioners of old. They could be adjusted with an elastic band, and exposed only the eyes and mouth, with a discreet opening at the nose. There was also enough space in the hoods for women with large manes to wear their hair loose.

  In the front hall, there were already half a dozen couples, besides the hosts and a few nurses (the only ones who always kept their faces uncovered). In general, people drank and talked, getting drunker and drunker and breaking out into groups, and then proceeded into the nearby rooms.

  Baeta took an interest in a lady, apparently young, probably blonde, whose skin, even in the dim light, seemed extremely fair. Guiomar, for her part, tried to distract the man so that Baeta and the blonde could make the arrangements alone. That was their game: Guiomar was a fierce and jealous woman, unaware of her husband’s adventures, who would never stand for an affair, and who could not even suspect, for example, the existence of a flag-bearer on Favela Hill.

  And yet, she loved to see him with other women, especially the white ones, which was when his powers of seduction became most evident. Therefore, she consented. Therefore, she looked forward to their visits to the House of Swaps, where Baeta could show off his virility, which so enraptured her.

  However, Guiomar would never allow anyone to touch her. Not only because this was a condition set by her husband, but because she felt better that way, as though she were worth more, knowing that she belonged to just one man, a man who could have any woman.

  Things had begun well enough that night; that is, until something seemed to irk the expert—a new couple had just arrived, and Baeta heard a familiar greeting:

  “Evening, boss!”

  The greeting was addressed to the doctor, the owner of the House, who responded in a familiar tone. There could be no doubt concerning the identity of the newcomer: the timbre of the voice, the subtle body movements, and especially the insolent manner he had of blowing cigarette smoke. Aniceto was the last person Baeta expected to meet at the House of Swaps.

  Everyone noticed Baeta’s anxiety as he excused himself and pulled the Polish doctor aside.

  “This guy may be implicated in the secretary’s death!”

  Dr. Zmuda was always discreet, but the vehemence with which Baeta addressed him, and the fact that he was police, led him to talk.

  “He is the widow Palhares’ guest. They’ve been here several times before. The nurses love him.”

  Baeta had never noticed the capoeira’s presence there before. He insisted that the man was a lowlife who preyed on women, and that he had just led an honest woman to kill her husband. He was also probably involved in some very shady dealings because it was inconceivable that a mere typographer’s apprentice could have so many opportunities to meet and conquer rich lovers. The doctor looked surprised:

  “From what I understand, he works on Ouvidor Street, at La Parisienne. He is Madame Montfort’s right arm.”

  So that was Aniceto’s secret: he had found a job at a store that sold luxury items i
n order to seduce society ladies. But even if this helped explain the question of opportunity, it still could not elucidate the fascination the capoeira exercised over the female sex—a phenomenon that extended even to prostitutes.

  The expert also did not understand why the capoeira had omitted this fact—his “working” at Madame Montfort’s establishment—which would have been enough to have the charge of vagrancy against him dismissed in his latest encounter with the police.

  Dr. Zmuda interrupted the conversation, pointing to a group that was getting up. Baeta and Guiomar accompanied the other couples to a room that had once been the Marquise’s dressing room. There was a bed at the center and benches against the walls for observers.

  Onto the bed climbed Aniceto, the young widow Palhares, and another, very tall lady, who was there for the third time but who had only been a spectator until then.

  Brazen, and forceful, the capoeira put on a show. The two women, in a sudden surge of desire, were completely tamed by him; he orchestrated every action, every initiative. However varied his movements, at no time—and perhaps this is where his great artistry lay—did their bodies lose contact. There was some shyness, some reticence on their part. The two tried to disguise their excitement and pleasure, as if everything were unfolding by chance.

  Baeta noticed a detail that might have escaped the others: Aniceto never ignored the widow, but he also never looked straight into her eyes. The high point of the night was when he, with a gesture of contempt and dismissiveness, held her by the hair and made her explore, with her mouth, the entire body of the tall woman—who suddenly overcame her shyness and offered herself up, swearing all the while.

  Lastly, the audience watched yet another impressive feat: putting the tall woman in a supine position and openly turning his back to Palhares, he brought them to simultaneous orgasms, entering the first one with force, while stretching his arms to caress the widow.