The Mystery of Rio

by Alberto Mussa

  In subsequent days, Baeta made incursions into very many bars and dives in the area—anywhere he might find Aniceto’s women, while at the same time avoiding his rival. He even ventured into a drumming circle on Proposito Street.

  However, it was at an old warehouse in Santo Cristo—where codfish, sausage, and dried beef were sold off of hooks from the ceiling, infesting the air with a suffocating smell of salt and fat—where he met the capoeira’s first avowed enemy.

  “Stinking bastard. One day he’ll be dead, and no one will have a clue why.”

  His tone was one of pure hatred. Baeta also detected a foreign accent. The man turned his back to the expert and returned to his conversation with two companions lounging on potato sacks. That’s when a fourth man from the same group folded his hand in a round of sueca, and motioned to Baeta, indicating that they should go to the rear to talk.

  Antonio the Mina, the man with the accent, owned his own home on Hospício Street and was one of the last African babalaôs of Rio de Janeiro. The other Ifá priests disliked him intensely because he went around saying that he was the sole legitimate heir to the tradition, the only one who knew the two hundred fifty-six paths of each of the two hundred fifty-six odus (or individual destinies), which equaled more than sixty-five thousand memorized poems he could recite.

  The man who explained these things was the African’s apprentice. Baeta had never heard that the Mina people had a god of knowledge, and a kind of alphabet—represented by complex symbols whose meaning could be deciphered by arithmetic analysis of their strokes—used to write the odus. He began to realize that these sorcerers had their own principles and methods. Perhaps for that very reason, because of the rational nature of that activity, all of those men, including the Galician, the owner of the warehouse, venerated Antonio the Mina, the babalaô.

  And the expert went on listening, paying for more and more rounds of cachaça and chorizo, until finally Antonio joined them to narrate what he knew about Aniceto.

  Antonio had consulted for Aniceto forever. The capoeira had been abandoned by his mother as a newborn, and then lost his father, which was when his brothers disowned him. At the time the babalaô, out of the kindness of his heart, helped support him. They did not know or even remember a sister named Fortunata—which was natural, considering the age when the two would have been separated.

  Incidentally, no relative, except his father, had ever shown any interest in the capoeira. For this reason, the Mina could not forgive Aniceto’s betrayal. As he explained it, before the capoeira disappeared for a while up north, he had sought out another sorcerer from a different line, an old macumbeiro, a charlatan and a scam artist.

  That was the reason for the fight: Antonio had refused to initiate Aniceto as a babalaô because the odu prohibited it.

  “He came up Odi-Otura. They say that whoever performs Ifá on this individual will attract shame or disgrace.”

  The expert was impressed with this schism between sorcerers—similar in many ways to what one encounters between scientists advocating divergent theoretical tangents.

  “Now he struts around like a big shot. They say he has lots of women and money. People think it’s the work of macumba. Don’t believe it. If he has women, it’s because he got rich. And if got rich, it’s because he’s a thief!”

  By then, Baeta had already knocked back a few cachaças. But he could still easily deduce the identity of the old macumbeiro: power like that—money, women—really was worth a pair of gold earrings shaped like seahorses.

  It was not the first time Baeta had been draw into a world of fantastic realities, of esoteric knowledge, and of magic. His mother, a laundress, had been permeated by the supernatural in her daily life. She liked to recite supernatural incidents, mostly crimes, which she had heard from neighbors at the grocery store and at street fairs.

  In Catumbi, Baeta’s birthplace, they had lived next to a fortune-teller, Mrs. Zeze, who took in an old man who channeled the spirits of dead African slaves, a preto velho de quimbanda. Young Sebastião had been with that old man, Father Cristóvão das Almas, only once, secretly taken there by an aunt when they said he had rabies after a dog bit him.

  He never forgot that scene: Mrs. Zeze, possessed by the spirit, wrinkled skin, her body all bent with age, contorted, sitting on her adductor muscles, her legs folded back, a position that in theory should have been unbearable for anyone her age. And Father Cristóvão, with his ancient and pentatonic voice, channeling chilling melodies while wielding a machete and knife, puffing bitter smoke from his pipe, exploding huge fundanga wheels, drinking liters of cachaça, and staying clearheaded all the while.

  The washerwoman’s son was healed and heard even more stories, about people who died on the day and in the manner predicted by the old man; about messages from beyond the grave, with details so precise and so intimate that they could not be mere coincidence; about diagnosed diseases, which were later confirmed by medical doctors; plus many other wonders.

  But he never paid much heed to any of these things. His father had been an engineer who, even from a distance, had instilled in him the illusion that everyone who came out of this universe was a failure. The engineer, seeing the boy’s extraordinary intelligence, invested heavily in his formal education and inculcated in him a mindset we might call “scientific.”

  Perhaps this was why Baeta had never given any credence to the more heterodox strands of science. His vehement rejection of Lombroso’s criminal anthropology, for example, stemmed not only from numerous counterproofs collected in Baeta’s own work, but also because the Italian doctor had studied spiritualism, having attested to the veracity of the mesmeric and magnetic experiments that were all the rage in Europe at the time. The expert found such an interest incompatible with the scientific mentality, and therefore disqualified it as theoretical.

  The babalaô Antonio the Mina was both a disturbing and conciliatory element for Baeta. First, because Baeta realized that magical thinking surprisingly sought support in numbers theory, and second, because the expert now had no doubt whatsoever that Aniceto’s seductive power had been obtained supernaturally. The testimonies of Antonio the Mina, and of the Portuguese landlady, and of Miroslav Zmuda himself confirmed that those feats were recent, and that they coincided with the date of the services rendered by Rufino at the English Cemetery.

  We know that great mathematical minds have a great propensity toward mysticism: Baeta was the son of an engineer, and he had grown up on supernatural stories from the laundress. At that moment, these lineages merged; logic and magic began to inhabit the same world, and all of the fantastical inclinations of his intellectual constitution blossomed inside of him with great energy.

  The expert felt that if he resorted to witchcraft to win the bet, he would not be betraying his essentially rational nature.

  Consulting Mrs. Zeze, however, was impossible—Baeta had gone to her funeral, years earlier, in the company of his mother. Antonio the Mina was even less of an option. Although he had not clearly understood the babalaô’s objections to Aniceto’s plans, Baeta intuited that the capoeira had only sought Rufino because he could not accept the Mina’s rejection.

  Therefore, the one who possessed that power, the one who could transmit the power he so coveted, was the scam artist, the charlatan, the macumbeiro Rufino.

  One of the fantastic stories Baeta had heard his mother tell in his childhood was published under the title Maria do Pote’s Unexpected Revenge, and it was still well known in 1983, when the late Beto da Cuíca transformed it into a samba.

  It tells the story of Dito (short for “Benedito”), a trickster, drummer, and resident of Rato Hill who attended the samba circle of the sinister Terreirão, in San Carlos. This place—a sort of step, naturally cut out of the hill’s steep slope—had been cursed ever since they cut down a mata-pau (or laurel fig) tree there, thus opening the ground as if it were the very gates of Hell.r />
  Whoever walked through the Terreirão, and specifically dragged his foot over the area where the tree had once stood, was stricken by irreparable misfortune, and would be haunted until his dying days.

  At the time of the events narrated, however, this phenomenon had not yet been perceived. For that reason, no one who lived nearby ever missed a jam session there, and even people from Andaraí came down to verify the reputation of the hotshots from Estacio.

  Dito was not just a drummer and a malandro. He was also, above all, a bandit. The robberies he committed were not of his own initiative, but were killings he would do for hire. The latter fact, of course, did not prevent him from performing some killings whose motivation was, shall we say, of a personal, rather than financial, nature. If he was not getting paid, Dito only killed for revenge.

  There were certain rituals associated with each case. For example, when for hire, Dito complied with his client’s calendar. Revenge killings, however, he performed only on Saturdays in March or April.

  So much art, so much premeditation, went into these crimes that Dito was not concerned that future victims might get wind of their sentences. No one escaped—especially because they had not uncovered the principles underlying the choice of the fateful Saturday.

  The consequences of having stepped onto the Terreirão, for Dito, began as soon as he laid eyes on a lively mulatta in the samba circle, who transfixed the malandro with a very eccentric, very provocative swing in her hips. As you may have surmised, it was none other than Maria do Pote.

  After the samba, Dito, a bandit and a drummer, became intimate with the girl right there on the slope.

  Maria do Pote was a local, but she attended a candomblé de inquices at Barão of Itaúna, and had been shaved for sinhá Bamburucema—similar to a Iansã or a Santa Barbara. They say the women of Santa Barbara are very hot-blooded—and better than those of Oxum.

  Her friends warned her that she should reject him, that men like him were no good, that they were only trouble. They had no idea, these women, how good it is to be with a bad man. Dito claimed Maria do Pote as his.

  In a story such as this, whose theme is betrayal, which begins with talk of revenge, which involves a man (a villain) and a woman (a seductress), there can be no outcome that does not involve adultery. And that is exactly what will happen.

  First, however, it must be said that Maria do Pote was not a loose woman, a whore, as many insist. It is important to remember, first, that she was a young lady, and second, that she had danced on the spot where the root of the mata-pau had once been.

  They are impressive, these fig trees. Their vast, confused, and irregular thicket of branches appears to reflect the very unpredictability of life. Contradictorily, the branches resemble roots, and they appear to extend deep into the earth. Because of this ambivalence, the trees are a gateway into the underworld and into the tombs where disembodied spirits dwell. The tree itself, the mata-pau, the “kill-stick,” feeds on death, as the name itself suggests, because it only germinates over the corpses of other trees.

  Maria do Pote—like many others, like Dito himself—seemed infused by the spirit of the fig tree. And on one occasion, one single time, after a samba, when her man did not show up, she curled up with another man in that gully. Dito, being streetwise, got wind of everything, but he kept quiet, taking full advantage of the few days Maria had left.

  It was April 15th, 1911—Holy Saturday, the day of the Great Revenge—where they would beat up on Judas and then go drink and beat their drums in the Terreirão, that Dito cut Maria do Pote’s throat, right there in the middle of the circle.

  Her girlfriends mourned, and no one else dared even touch the subject. What people did begin to talk about was the thug’s behavior. First, he would go to great lengths not to pass by the São Francisco de Paula Cemetery, instead taking Doutor Agra to get to Itapiru Street, always avoiding Catumbi Square. Then he started fearing all intersections, which he only crossed with his eyes closed. It was then that it was revealed that Dito was seeing apparitions.

  No father or holy person had a solution to his problem. The batuqueiro was a hopeless case, until a new Holy Saturday came along.

  Dito was at the Terreirão, fighting off the blues, when it happened: the malandro, the crook, this evil and murderous thug, suddenly jumped into the center of the circle, hands on his twisting hips—dancing in the exotic, seductive, and unmistakable style of the late Maria do Pote. They say even his laughter had the exact same timbre as the girl’s.

  Let us get back to Rufino now. The house, atop Santa Teresa, seemed to be carved out of the forest right above where Antonio Valentim had once built his imposing castle, in an area that was being settled little by little, and already had a dozen shacks on it.

  Rufino’s house was the most isolated of them all. But it was not built from scrap lumber and demolition materials like the others: it was of a much older construction, made of wattle and daub, low and without windows. The precarious ventilation was achieved by way of a small gap between the walls and the palm fiber that covered the roof. A meandering coral snake was painted on the front door, which was shut with a wooden latch. There was a second door in the back, with just enough room for a crouched man to enter. This door faced the dense forest.

  This was an important difference: while the other residents tried to clear the forest around their homes, to make the environment increasingly urban, Rufino preferred the shade and humidity of the jungle. And that was not all—he threatened anyone who appeared with a scythe, a machete, or an ax, saying that the exuberant nature that surrounded them had not been the work of God, but rather that it was he, Rufino, who had built that forest, just like Antonio Valentim had built his castle. The old man claimed he could identify all of the palm trees, the jequitibás, the jatobás, the jacarandas, the tapirirás, the cinnamon trees, the cedars, the perobas, ipês, begonias, orchids, the angelins, and gameleiras he had planted there in a labor that had lasted forty years.

  It was one more story that circulated about him: that he had been one of the slaves utilized by Major Archer during the reforestation of the mountains of Tijuca, an effort which started in 1861, by order of the emperor, with the intent of recovering the sources of the Comprido, Maracanã, and Carioca rivers to end the city’s chronic water shortages.

  Rufino actually completed his duties, but only after leading his fellow slaves to escape into the surrounding hills. Thus emerged the mysterious Cambada Quilombo, a community of runaway slaves never destroyed or located, which Rufino headed.

  While the major continued with the work (this time with salaried employees), the fugitives did the same thing, replanting the forest at different points on the hillside.

  The replanting of Tijuca Forest, for Rufino, served to rescue not only the rivers but also his favorite prey: pacas, peccary, the macuco, and the lizards. The old man also wanted to create a maze, inside of which the Cambada Quilombo could resist forever.

  Thus, Rufino’s house, which was built in the quilombo style, was from an architectural standpoint more important than the castle, because it was one of the last of its type in the city.

  When Baeta arrived at the house, Rufino was not in, and it was raining. It had been a long hike up from Guimarães Square, where he had jumped off the streetcar. He would have preferred to wait a little before approaching the house, but there was nowhere to stay dry there, especially since the neighbors, who lived just down the hill, did not seem to like the old man very much, and pointed the way very grudgingly.

  Just when the rain began really coming down, when it was turning into a full-blown storm, the expert noticed a movement in the bushes, and he walked around the house, gun in hand, expecting find an animal of some kind. Then he saw that the back door, protected by a fence of bromeliads, was open. He could not resist.

  The furniture consisted of a mat, covering a bed of leaves, and a wooden stool covered with t
apir leather. There was also the stump of a jackfruit tree, which must have doubled as a chair, and a stove with an iron trivet over it. The rest were various wicker baskets hanging from the roof, a candongueiro drum made of jararaca skin, and the skulls of animals hanging from the walls. The expert thought he recognized fourteen: a jaguar, a giant anteater, an agouti, an alligator, a peccary, a pygmy owl, a howler monkey, a capybara, a sloth, a spider monkey, an armadillo, a toucan, an ocelot, and a paca. Finally, objects lay scattered on the floor: ropes, candles, bottles, primitive tools, knives, a rapier, and even a large shiv, which could be used in hunting or even warfare.

  “Looking to die, young man?”

  Baeta turned to face Rufino, who was standing, drenched, barefoot, and shirtless, machete in hand. Some solemn looks can scare you more than a machete. Despite being armed, and despite being police, the expert trembled.

  The old man recognized the expert. In his mind he was of the same ilk as the Mauá Square thugs. He stared Baeta down with a steely gaze, awaiting an explanation. The expert, very carefully, began apologizing before getting to the subject at hand:

  “I came to talk to you about the man who gave you the earrings.”

  Rufino, was skeptical. He settled down on the tapir skin bench, his legs open. Suddenly, he hurled the machete, lodging it into the jackfruit tree stump with a thud. It was his way of telling the policeman where to sit.

  “What does the man with the earrings have to do with this story?”

  Baeta did not understand. He knew nothing about any story. He had come with a very specific objective concerning Aniceto. That is what he intended to talk about.

  “Don’t think you can fool me, mister. You’re all the same.”

  It was clear to the expert, once again, that being police spoiled everything. But he didn’t feel like justifying himself and went straight to the point: he spoke of the babalaô Antonio the Mina; of Aniceto’s countless women, and of his own suspicion that the service rendered for the capoeira in the English Ceme­tery, and paid for with the earrings, had something to do with that power.