The Mystery of Rio

by Alberto Mussa

  “I came to get myself the same thing.”

  Rufino did not answer immediately. He dried his hands with a wad of tow, took a pipe from one of the samburás, filled it with a pinch of tobacco, and only after his third puff, declared:

  “I don’t strike deals with the police. Never again.”

  That’s when Baeta understood: his home had been broken into, his belongings had been ransacked and scattered like trash, he himself had been tortured. He still had bruises from the blows to his back, not to mention the burns on his face, hands, and the soles of his feet. All of this because of a treasure they said was his.

  The officers who wanted to extort him (Baeta did not suspect the captain was one of them) were now poking around, prowling his house, following his every footstep and those of his clients.

  The expert—who had already accepted the abstraction of magic—still could not believe in stories of such palpable wealth, in such vast quantities of stones and precious metals. And he told the old man as much, to try to convince him that he had not gone there to rob him. Rufino, however, remained interested only in his pipe, making it very clear that the subject was closed.

  “So then, does this treasure really exist?”

  It was just a taunt. When the old man opened his mouth it was only to spit on the ground. Baeta stood, angrily. Before slamming the door behind him, though, he played one last card:

  “I’ll take care of the police. We’ll talk soon.”

  Rufino, who up until then had maintained a fierce expression, laughed for the first time.

  The Aniceto Problem—as Doctor Zmuda had termed it—was actually a set of observations that could be looked at from the prism of three distinct topics, related to the areas of female sexuality that had most interested the doctor in recent years.

  We saw that in Vienna, Miroslav Zmuda emphasized the physiology of intercourse, the sexual evolution of the races, and the Myth of the Large Penis. His ideas at the time brought with them the implicit assumption that the action of the phallus in the vagina was the primordial element of female pleasure, albeit assisted by other factors.

  By overly stressing one aspect, you run the risk of neglecting another one. Thus, the Polish doctor belittled the importance of clitoral functions, both in stimulation as well as during coitus, as he regarded manual induction of orgasms as secondary and dispensable, particularly in women. Who would have thought? Miroslav Zmuda, skilled masturbator, who had won over Brigitte at his former clinic in Gloria in precisely that manner.

  It was Aniceto who began to change the doctor’s thinking. It was couples’ night. July 24th. The usual guests were there. Guiomar and the expert Baeta were there. Zmuda was shocked to see Palhares, with her new partner, less than two months after her husband’s funeral. Few realized it was she, though, so the couple sparked little interest. Baeta, then in the throes of lovemaking, did not even glance at them.

  But Aniceto was playing close attention. His gaze was firmly fixed on the women, especially the nurses. He soon attracted one, and, with Palhares, took her into one of the bedrooms that guests were allowed to lock from inside. It was this nurse who narrated the following series of events to Madame Brigitte.

  Not only did Aniceto guide the widow to kiss her on the mouth, and to explore her entire body, but he produced in her an orgasm through penetration that she had never before experienced with a man at that intensity. Lying on her back, the prostitute felt Aniceto’s full weight focused on his pubis, and, by vigorously pressing against her vulva, he could swivel his hips, introducing the penis at the same time and with the same force that he massaged the clitoris.

  “I was so shaken, I could barely move,” concluded the girl, at a loss for words to describe the sensation.

  Because she was a prostitute with vast experience, Zmuda gave much value to that technique. And a few months later he was able to watch it live, for it was exactly the technique Aniceto used on the tall woman at the party where Baeta took notice of the capoeira for the first time.

  That, however, was not what most impressed Dr. Zmuda about Aniceto. It was in the field of sexual attraction that he was truly working wonders.

  To seduce a nurse was perhaps not so difficult; but by then, Dr. Zmuda already knew that Aniceto was not exactly Madame Montfort’s employee, that he had been the cause of the crime committed by the industrialist’s wife, and that he had a certain facility in seducing very fine ladies, like the widow Palhares and her neighbor in Laranjeiras, not to mention the women he met at the House of Swaps.

  Although there were exceptions—and Madame Brigitte had already arranged some fantasies to that effect—females in general (so the doctor believed), preferred males of a superior social rank to their own, which in Rio de Janeiro was often confused with the notion of race.

  Palhares and many of the other women who had been seduced by the capoeira had already shown a tendency toward brutish, poor, or ignorant men, which for Zmuda belonged to the realm of individual fantasy, so there was no real surprise there. The surprise lay in Aniceto’s being accepted by so many superior partners, which gave his achievement the air of a real feat.

  This was one reason why Aniceto’s presence at the House of Swaps was so essential. Miroslav Zmuda wanted first to understand his method and then to discover the scientific foundations that made it possible.

  The second reason was more pressing: the capoeira, besides being an irresistible seducer, had an unimaginable capacity for entering the minds of women and discovering their most intimate sexual desires, which he would then turn around and expose and exploit.

  A good example was how he had managed Palhares and the tall woman: Aniceto seemed to know things beforehand—that both liked being with women, too, that the widow enjoyed being treated with a certain contempt, and playing a more submissive role, that the other preferred the more dominant role, and that being passive, in that kind of situation, was her way of humiliating her partner.

  Even supposing Palhares had revealed such desires to the capoeira (which Zmuda considered very unlikely), there was no way to explain the tall woman, other than amazing coincidence or deep intuition. The doctor leaned toward the second hypothesis, while revising his notes and confirming that neither of the two had exhibited those tendencies, those symbolizations, before.

  This was the third major theme of Dr. Zmuda’s research: the constancy of the phenomenon he called “sexual symbolization,” the discovery of which he owed to the city, Madame Brigitte, and the House of Swaps.

  It was in Rio de Janeiro that Miroslav Zmuda discovered—or, rather, became fully convinced—that female orgasms were extremely affected by the symbolic components of attraction and sex. These symbols could operate merely in the realm of fantasy, for example in individuals who secretly imagined certain scenes during intercourse. Or these scenes could be fully carried out, and then they became real-life experiments and tremendously influenced pleasure levels.

  Since then, the Polish doctor had been cataloging and classifying a large number of these symbolizations. Both the specialized literature and public opinion in general tainted these as aberrations, perversions, fetishes, addictions, vices, abominable practices, and deviations. Nobody inhabited these dark areas so familiarly as did Aniceto.

  In 1916, when the composer Donga filed for a copyright at the National Library for a score to a song entitled Pelo Telefone (the first composition to earn the name “samba,” although it was, in fact, a maxixe), he may have committed a series of omissions, or even told lies regarding the genre, the authorship, and the dates of its composition.

  However, the song was truthful with regard to the content of its lyrics. At least since 1913, the police chief had known of the presence of a roulette wheel at Carioca Square. And that such a roulette wheel was located at the Hans Staden Bar—the popular nickname of a traditional German brewery, which never officially went by that name, and at its height serv
ed the best lager in the world at an address that today houses a cutlery store.

  Whoever entered Hans’s could not help but notice the round marble table where they displayed (for the use of the customers) playing cards, dice, boards, and the pieces of various games of chance. It was not exactly a den of gambling, but the bar had become famous for being one of the main centers of banned games in the city, even boasting of a secret room, where said roulette wheel was located.

  For this reason, the patrons of Hans’s felt uneasy when Baeta and the captain of the First District crossed the entire length of the bar, and sat at a small table in the back, and ordered draft beer, pickles, and assorted sausages.

  The captain’s invitation had come as a surprise to the expert. It must not have been work they had come to discuss; otherwise, they could just as well have talked back at the division. The matter, thus, must have been private, giving Baeta a unique opportunity to address his problem, the case of Rufino the sorcerer.

  The expert imagined that the captain, a skeptical type, would not give any credence to the treasure story. So, without revealing his true reasons, he would ask that his colleague impose his authority and force his officers to lay off the old man. He would say it was arbitrary, he would use the police chief’s name, perhaps even that of the minister of justice. What he did not know was how to do this without disclosing his personal stake in the matter.

  So he was taken aback when the captain went straight to the subject, after the first sip:

  “I know you were in Santa Teresa, at the sorcerer’s house.”

  So it really was true: Rufino was being kept under round-the-clock surveillance by officers of the First District. The movement in the bushes the expert had noticed, before entering the old man’s hut, was a spy. Baeta simply could not have imagined that the captain himself was behind this hunt.

  “Something big is going down in my district. I have a right to know what it is.”

  This was a checkmate of sorts on the expert’s plan. Baeta could not allow them to suspect that the secretary had been murdered (and therefore could not say that the case of Fortunata had occurred in São Cristovão and not in Mauá Square, which perhaps would have relieved tensions). He needed to maintain the same posture that he knew nothing, that he had gone to the old man as a forensics expert, in search of evidence for other cases of stolen corpses that he had begun to review. It was rot, and the captain saw right through it.

  “You need to know something: the First District is a brotherhood.”

  Baeta understood the implied threat. In the department, the sense of honor and loyalty of the Mauá Square gang was legend. Not that they were really a gang. They had no kickback scheme or anything of the sort. What existed between them—beyond the vanity of thinking they were the town’s finest—was merely a pact of mutual defense and of unconditional support, like the Freemasons or other secret societies. There’s no need to mention here the kind of punishment that befell traitors and enemies.

  “And what were you looking for at the wharf two weeks ago?”

  They must never know in the First District that Fortunata was the capoeira’s sister. Baeta said dismissively that his problem with the scoundrel was of a personal nature. As soon as he gave this answer, though, he realized he was not lying, that he, Baeta, really did have a personal issue with Aniceto.

  The captain, however, was a good cop. And he was in the habit of saying what was on his mind: that Baeta was conducting an investigation in his, the captain’s, jurisdiction; that the capoeira had some link to Rufino; that Rufino had links to the woman named Fortunata; and that the woman was related to Aniceto, which closed the circle. And said circle certainly involved a very big story.

  “Speaking of big stories, why were the earrings returned?”

  Baeta read into the captain’s smile a suspicion. And he responded with an accusation of his own, a frown. The captain, who knew how to read facial expressions, hastened to retort:

  “No one steals at the First District.”

  It took a while for the expert to understand what his colleague was thinking: at Mauá Square they thought Baeta had returned the earrings to serve as bait. Rufino—who everyone knew had a treasure—would not take long before visiting his hideout to add that piece, or any of the others he had received from his many clients.

  So that was what they had against Baeta in the First Dis­trict.

  The expert, however, had an essentially mathematical spirit. For him, it was more difficult to believe in concrete wonders (such as Rufino’s treasure) than in abstract entities such as points, lines, circles, and other geometric figures nonexistent in nature that make up the fantastic universe created by Euclid.

  That, more or less, was what he hinted at to the captain: he was not hunting for any treasures because he could not imagine a more pointless idea.

  It is amazing the affect treasures have on people. The captain did not accept the expert’s explanation, because those who believe in treasures simply cannot admit that others might not believe.

  “And why exactly did you pay the old man a visit?”

  It was an answer Baeta would not give. And such insistence, at that moment, infuriated him. Perhaps the captain had not noticed that the expert did not like to be intimidated. Baeta was a man. He had been born a man. Being afraid was not in his makeup; he did not care if he were going against the entire Brotherhood.

  He was faster than the captain, and he angrily stabbed the last sausage, leaving the other with his toothpick hanging in the air.

  “You invite, you pay,” he said, standing to leave.

  He had just declared war.

  One of the stories recorded by Dr. Zmuda, and brought to life by Madame Brigitte, illustrates how the House of Swaps proceeded in cases of the sort. It began when Brigitte received an anonymous letter in which the female sender (because it was surely a woman) described a fantasy she needed fulfilled, but stated that she would only let her identity be known if the House administrator first consented to make it a reality.

  Madame Brigitte wrote yes and set the price and also gave instructions regarding certain arrangements necessary for the implementation of the plan, particularly the delivery of the money—to be made on a certain date and time, to a certain individual who would be dressed in a certain manner, at a predetermined spot on Machado Square.

  A few days later, the following scene unfolded: on a dark street by Flamengo Beach, near Catete, a horse-drawn coupe pulled up beside a woman in a muslin dress with a tight corset and feather hat, walking in well-measured steps, so that the driver, very politely, could ask a question.

  The woman’s anxiety was visible. Approached in such a cordial manner, though, she seemed to relax, and as she was about to answer, suddenly, from a nearby alley, a man grabbed the lady’s arm and shoved her into the carriage.

  And the coupe drove on, from Catete downtown—not to a public place like Central Avenue, but to the worst part of Alfândega Street, where the old Quitanda do Marisco used to be, and there it stopped. The woman—who had suffered verbal insults and some physical abuse during the trip—was dragged to an old two-story apartment building and taken upstairs. There she would be handed over to another man, who would then unceremoniously have his way with her.

  But we will leave that story for later. Let us now examine the first man, the abductor, actually a young man of twenty-two. He was a kind of an external arm, an advance guard, so to speak, for the House of Swaps, there to perform the risky and somewhat more unusual services.

  I do not know if I made clear that, though there were men for hire, unlike the nurses they were not on call at the House. Madame Brigitte would summon them when needed, and depending on the circumstances, they could even render their services at the old Imperador Street (always with great discretion, following strict security procedures). But it was more common to go instead to rented quarters in the old do
wntown area.

  Hermínio, the male prostitute who took the woman from Catete to Alfandêga Street, was not from a wealthy family, but still he could have been a journalist or employed in trade instead, like his father and brothers. He had chosen this line of work because it gave him pleasure, because he enjoyed the risk, and because he did not understand the concept of work.

  Though he had participated in his share of melees at America matches (he enjoyed soccer precisely for that reason), what he really loved were the regattas, and he had even rowed for São Cristovão. As for his money, he preferred spending it at Hans Staden’s secret back room, or playing the lottery at the Central Station.

  It was also not unusual to see him near Mauá Square playing monte, English monte, heads or tails, or chapinha—games not frequented exclusively by malandros.

  It was his ability to move in all of these circles—the secret roulette wheels of Carioca Square and the wooden stools of the Gamboa—that made him an ideal candidate for the major missions of the House of Swaps. Hermínio was well-spoken, dressed finely, and, with his ex-rower’s size 18 neck, he cut a good figure. But he also could mix just as easily with the down-and-out crowd, though he was not a capoeira and did not frequent drumming jams.

  Thus, while he worked almost exclusively for sophisticated clientele—capitalists, military, high-level civil servants—he also acted behind the scenes, organizing elaborate fantasies, hiring carriages, renting rooms, bribing authorities, taking precautions to guarantee secrecy, and other measures of the sort.

  It had been Hermínio, for example, who had managed to convince three unemployed men to accompany him to that same flat on Alfanêga Street, where they found a masked woman, whose identity only remained unknown due to Hermínio’s diligence (such was the eagerness with which all three fell on her). It was he, too, who had succeeded in persuading a bankrupt woman to give over her daughter for two contos. It was also Hermínio who discovered an immense and evil woman on Cachoeirinha Hill who truly had giant paws for feet, and who became all the rage with the foot fetishists of the House of Swaps.