9
Due to the five hours’ time difference, I found myself on Brazilian soil at six o’clock the following morning. Expecting to step out into the glaring South American sun, I was disappointed to arrive to a cloudy sky. Of course, I realised, I’d arrived in their winter, which – even though the temperature was still in the high seventies – meant the absence of the intense tropical heat I’d anticipated. As I emerged into the arrivals hall, I saw a man holding a board with my name upon it.
‘Olá, eu sou Senhorita D’Aplièse. Como você está?’ I asked in Portuguese as I approached the driver, and enjoyed the look of surprise on his face.
As he led me to the car and we drove out of the airport towards Rio, I gazed through the window with avid interest. This was the city – apparently – of my birth. Even though I’d travelled to Brazil during my second year at university, the exchange programme had been based at a university in São Paulo, and my travels had taken me up to the old capital of Salvador. Stories of Rio and its crime, poverty and wild nightlife had made me wary of visiting, especially as a single woman. But now, here I was, and if Pa Salt’s information was correct, I was part of its DNA and it was part of mine.
The driver, happy to have a rare foreigner who spoke fluent Portuguese in his car, asked me where I was from.
‘Here. I was born here,’ I replied.
He surveyed me in the rear-view mirror.
‘Why, of course! Now I can see you look Brazilian! But your surname is D’Aplièse, so I presumed you were French. You’re here to visit relatives?’
‘Yes, I suppose I am,’ I replied, the truth of the words resonating in my brain.
‘Look.’ The driver pointed upwards to a high mountain on which a white statue stood, arms wide open, embracing the city. ‘There is our Cristo Redentor. I always know I’m home when I see Him for the first time.’
I gazed up at the pale, elegantly sculpted figure, who seemed to be hovering amidst the clouds like an angelic apparition. Even though, just like the rest of the world, I’d seen the image countless times in the media, the reality was breathtaking and surprisingly moving.
‘You have been up to visit Him?’ my driver asked.
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Then you are a true native of Rio – a carioca!’ he said with a grin. ‘Even though he’s one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World, we in Rio take the statue for granted. It’s the tourists who flock to it.’
‘I will definitely go,’ I promised, as we disappeared into a tunnel and Christ the Redeemer vanished from view.
Forty minutes later, we pulled up at the Caesar Park Hotel. Across the wide road lay Ipanema Beach, deserted for the present due to the early hour but simply magnificent, stretching as far as the eye could see.
‘Here is my card, Senhorita D’Aplièse. My name is Pietro and I will be on call for you any time you wish to go out in the city.’
‘Obrigada,’ I said, thanking him, and I handed him some reais as a tip before following the porter into the lobby to check in.
A few minutes later, I was installed in a pleasantly spacious suite with a wonderful view of Ipanema Beach from the large front windows. The room was ridiculously expensive, but was all they’d had available at such short notice. And given that I rarely spent anything from my earnings, I didn’t feel guilty. Depending on what happened in the next few days, if I decided to stay on for longer, I’d simply rent an apartment.
And what would happen in the next few days?
The past twenty-four hours had been such a whirlwind, propelled only by how panicked and desperate I’d felt to remove myself from Switzerland, I hadn’t really thought through what I’d do when I actually arrived. But for now, having slept so badly on the plane, and feeling exhausted from the trauma of the past few days, I decided to hang the do not disturb sign on the door, then slipped between the fresh, sweet-smelling sheets and went to sleep.
Waking up a few hours later, and discovering that I was hungry but also eager to see the city, I took the lift up to the top-floor restaurant. Sitting on the small terrace that had a wonderful vista of both the sea and the mountains, I ordered a Caesar salad and a glass of white wine. The clouds had blown away like a memory, and below me the beach was now crowded with bronzed bodies sunning themselves.
Once I’d eaten, I felt my brain begin to clear enough to allow me to think about what was best to do. I studied the address pinpointed by the coordinates, which I’d copied into my mobile, and conceded there was no guarantee that my original family was still occupying the house. I didn’t know their names, or anything about them. I couldn’t help a nervous chuckle at the thought of turning up on the doorstep and announcing I was searching for my long-lost family.
But then, I mused, trying to honour Pa Salt’s quote on the armillary sphere, the worst they could do was to slam the door in my face. Perhaps the glass of wine and the jet lag were providing me with an unusual feeling of courage. So I returned to my suite, and before I changed my mind, called downstairs to see if Pietro, the driver who had collected me from the airport, was available to take me to the address I wanted.
‘No problem,’ said the concierge. ‘Do you wish for the car immediately?’
‘Yes.’
And so it came to pass that ten minutes later, I was back in Pietro’s car, heading slowly out of the centre of the city.
‘This house, A Casa das Orquídeas, I think I know it,’ he commented.
‘I don’t,’ I confessed.
‘Well, if it’s the one I think it is, it is most interesting. It’s very old and used to be inhabited by a rich Portuguese family,’ he said as we came to yet another grinding halt in the traffic jams he’d told me never ceased.
‘The house may have new owners,’ I mused.
‘This is true.’ He eyed me in the mirror, and I knew he sensed my tension. ‘Are you searching for a relative?’
‘Yes,’ I answered honestly, glancing up as we drove and immediately seeing Christ the Redeemer hovering above me. Never having been particularly religious, somehow at that moment I felt an extraordinary sense of comfort from His all-encompassing, outstretched arms.
‘So, we will pass the address you want in a couple of minutes,’ Pietro advised me fifteen minutes later. ‘I doubt you can see much from the road, because it is surrounded by a high hedge to give it privacy. This used to be a very exclusive neighbourhood, but now, sadly, much development has taken place around it.’
I could see that the road was indeed lined with a mixture of industrial buildings and apartment blocks.
‘The house is there, senhorita.’
I followed Pietro’s pointed finger and saw a long stretch of overgrown hedge, wild flowers poking their pretty but destructive heads through the leaves. Compared to our immaculately maintained garden in Geneva, this one looked to me as if it had not seen a tender pair of hands caring for it in a very long time.
All I could see above the hedge was a set of old-fashioned chimneys; their original brick-red colour had been covered by years of soot and had faded to blackness.
‘Maybe the house is unoccupied,’ shrugged Pietro, immediately assessing, as I had, the unkempt look of the outside.
‘Maybe,’ I agreed.
‘Shall I park here?’ he asked me, slowing down and pulling over to the side of the road a few metres past the property.
‘Yes please.’
Bringing the car to a halt, he switched off the engine and turned to face me. ‘I shall be here waiting for you. Good luck, Senhorita D’Aplièse.’
‘Thank you.’
I climbed out of the car and slammed the door with far more force than necessary, preparing myself for what might come. As I walked along the pavement, I told myself that, in fact, whatever occurred in the next few minutes of my life didn’t matter. I’d always had a loving father and de facto mother, and I’d had my sisters. And if anything, the reason I was here was less to do with whatever I might find hidden behind these hedges, and
far more to do with what I’d instinctively run away from.
With this thought giving me the confidence I needed, I turned through the large, open wrought-iron gates into the drive. And for the first time, I laid eyes on the house where the coordinates had told me my story had originally begun.
It was an elegant eighteenth-century mansion, its formal square shape and white stuccoed walls, with their intricate plaster corbels and mouldings, redolent of Brazil’s colonial past. Yet as I drew nearer, I could see the stucco was shabby and cracked and the paintwork on the dozens of tall casement windows had peeled away in many places to reveal bare wood.
Garnering my courage, I walked towards it, passing around the base of a carved marble fountain, where rivulets of water must once have played. I saw that most of the shutters on the windows were tightly closed and began to wonder whether Pietro was right and that this house was no longer occupied.
Walking up the wide set of steps to the front door, I pressed the antiquated bell. But it elicited no sound from within. After trying it twice more, I knocked on the door as confidently as I dared. I waited for a response, but there was no sound of footsteps inside. I decided to knock again more loudly.
Having now stood on the doorstep for a good few minutes, I realised it was fruitless and that no one would be answering the door. Looking upwards, and again noting the closed shutters across the windows of the rooms above, I deduced the house was probably not lived in.
I descended the steps, deciding whether to walk straight back down the drive to Pietro and forget the whole idea, or whether to have a prowl around to see if I could at least see through a crack in one of the shutters. Deciding eventually on the latter, I crept around the side of the house.
I realised that it was far longer than it was wide, the side wall of the house stretching towards what I could see had once been a beautiful garden. I kept walking along its length, disappointed to find no visible peephole through which I could spy. As I reached the far end of the wall, it brought me on to a moss-covered terrace.
My eye was immediately caught by a stone sculpture of a young woman in the far corner of it, amidst some cracked terracotta plant pots. She was in a sitting position, staring straight ahead. And even though as I approached I saw the nose was chipped, the clean, simple lines of the woman were starkly beautiful.
I was about to turn to survey the back of the house when I noticed a figure sitting under a tree in the garden below the terrace.
My heart began to pound in my ears as I shrank back against the wall out of sight and peered round the corner to study the figure. From this distance, it was hard to form an exact physical description; all I could tell was that she was female and, from the way she sat in the chair, very elderly.
The sight of her sent a thousand thoughts shooting through my synapses. Never good at making immediate decisions, I stood there cowering, half an eye cocked towards the old woman who might or might not be related to me.
I looked up above me to the heavens and knew instinctively that Pa had never shrunk away from moments such as this. And for the first time in my adult life, neither would I.
I stepped out into full view of the woman and walked towards her. She didn’t turn her head towards me as I drew nearer. And when I was finally close enough to see her properly, I saw her eyes were closed and that she appeared to be asleep.
This gave me the opportunity to look at her face in more detail. I wondered if I should recognise some features of my own, but I knew there was every chance she would be a total stranger – someone who had occupied the house for the thirty-three years I’d been away from it.
‘Desculpe? Can I help you, senhorita?’
I almost jumped out of my skin as I heard a soft voice behind me and turned around. A stick-thin, elderly African woman with wiry greying hair and dressed in an old-fashioned maid’s uniform was looking at me suspiciously.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quickly. ‘I couldn’t get any answer at the front door . . .’
The woman put a finger to her lips. ‘Hush, she is sleeping. Why are you here?’
‘Because I . . .’ How on earth did I encapsulate the truth to this woman in a few whispered words? ‘I’ve been told I have a connection to this house and I’d like to speak to the owner.’
I felt her appraise me and there was a sudden flicker of her eyes as her gaze came to rest on my neck.
‘Senhora Carvalho is seeing no one. She is very sick and in much pain.’
‘Well, perhaps you can tell her I called.’ I opened my bag and looked inside for one of my cards, which I handed to the maid. ‘I’m staying at the Caesar Park Hotel. Can you say I very much want to talk to her?’
‘I can, but it will make no difference,’ the maid said abruptly.
‘May I ask how long the lady in the chair has lived in this house?’
‘For all of her life. Now, I will see you out.’
Her words sent shivers through me and I threw one last glance at the old woman in the chair. If Pa Salt and his coordinates were correct, it must mean that she was somehow related to me. I turned, and the maid began to escort me back across the terrace. We’d reached the corner of the house when a weak voice echoed towards us.
‘Who is she?’
We both stopped and turned round, and I saw the glint of fear in the maid’s eyes.
‘Forgive me, Senhora Carvalho, I did not wish to disturb you,’ she answered.
‘You are not. I have been watching you for the last five minutes. Bring her over. We can’t have a conversation one hundred metres apart.’
The maid did as her mistress asked and reluctantly walked me back across the terrace and down the steps into the garden. She ushered me in front of the old woman, and then read out the details of my card.
‘She is Senhorita Maia D’Aplièse and she is a translator.’
Now face to face with the woman, I could see she was emaciated, her skin a deathly grey, as though her life force was slowly ebbing away. But as her gimlet eyes swept over me, and a fleeting look of recognition and shock passed across them, I knew she was mentally alert.
‘Why are you here?’ she asked.
‘It’s a long story.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing, I . . .’
‘Senhorita D’Aplièse told me that she had an association with this house,’ said the maid, almost, I thought, encouragingly.
‘Really? And what kind of association would that be?’
‘I’ve been told that this was the house in which I was born,’ I said.
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, senhorita, but there have been no babies born under this roof since my own child, over fifty-five years ago. Isn’t that so, Yara?’ she said to her maid.
‘Sim, senhora.’
‘So, who gave you this information? Someone who wishes to form a relationship with me so that they can inherit this house when I am dead, no doubt?’
‘No, senhora, I promise that this has nothing to do with money. That’s not the reason I’m here,’ I said firmly.
‘Then please explain more clearly why you are.’
‘Because . . . I was adopted as a baby. My adoptive father died last week, and wrote me a letter saying that this house was where my family once lived.’ I stared at her, hoping the truth of what I’d said was visible in my eyes.
‘I see.’ Again she surveyed me carefully, seeming to hesitate before she replied. ‘Then I must tell you that your father has made a terrible mistake and you have had a wasted journey. I am sorry to be of no further help. Goodbye.’
As I finally allowed the maid to lead me away, I knew with absolute certainty that the old woman was lying.
10
Even though it was only eight in the evening when I arrived back at the hotel, my body was telling me it was after midnight and I made the mistake of falling into a deep and dreamless sleep, waking up with the dawn at five the following morning.
I lay in bed contemplating what I had seen
and learnt yesterday. Despite the old woman’s vehement denials, every instinct I had was telling me that Pa Salt had not been wrong. However, I thought ruefully, I had no idea what I could do about it. Whatever both the woman and her maid knew, they’d made it obvious they weren’t going to share it with me.
I pulled the tile out of my handbag, again trying to decipher the writing upon it, but I soon up gave up. What was the use? All I had was a few illegible faded words and a date. A moment in time sitting on the reverse of a piece of triangular stone.
Turning to my laptop to distract me, I looked at my emails and saw a message from the Brazilian publisher I had been working for, whom I’d contacted during the long three-and-a-half-hour wait in transit at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris.
Dear Senhora D’Aplièse,
We are delighted you have decided to visit Brazil. Our offices are located in São Paulo, so it may not be convenient for you to travel here to see us, but we would be thrilled to make your personal acquaintance if you do. However, we have forwarded your email to Floriano Quintelas, the author himself, as he lives in Rio. I’m sure he would be happy to meet you and assist you during your time in our beautiful country. Please don’t hesitate to ask if there is anything you need.
With best regards,
Luciano Baracchini
The friendliness and warmth of the email brought a smile to my lips. I remembered from my last visit how different the culture was from the far more formal Swiss style. I was in no doubt that if I had a problem of any kind, these people who didn’t know me at all would welcome and assist me in any way possible.
I lay back on the bed, looking out of the window as the sun rose over the sea and the wide road beneath me began to thunder with early morning traffic. The city was waking up.
The question was, after yesterday, should I attempt to dig deeper to discover the secrets Rio was keeping from me?
Given the only alternative I had – returning to Geneva, which I knew was an impossibility for now – I decided to stay on for at least a few more days and play the tourist. Even if I’d already come to a dead end in finding my heritage, I could at least discover the city in which I might have been born.
The Seven Sisters Page 9