Carioca Fletch

by Gregory Mcdonald

  Diagonally across the parade route from da Costa’s box, to the left, is the bull pen filled with hundreds of costumed ritmistas, the bateria of drummers of Escola Guarnieri. Their drums are of all sizes and tones. It takes the drummers up to an hour to put themselves into their proper places in regard to each other, to get their rhythms up, their sound up. Now their rhythm and their sound are full, and fill everyone at the parade, fill their ears, their brains, their entire nervous systems, control the beatings of their hearts, make their eyes flush with blood, their hands and feet move involuntarily, their bones to vibrate. This is total sound, amplified only by human will, as primitive a sound as Man ever made, the sound of drums, calling from every human, direct, immediate response, equalizing them in their numbness before the sound.

  Everyone in da Costa’s box is standing at the rail. Laura has taken off her wig and opened the collar of her eighteenth-century-styled shirt. The faces of everyone at the rail shine with sweat. Their eyes, their lips protrude slightly, as if the sound of the drums reverberating within them were seeking a way to burst out of them. The veins at their temples throb visibly to the beat of the drums. Being host, Teo stands back behind the people at the rail. Being tall, he can still see everything.

  Down the parade route from the left, passing the bateria in the bull pen like the top of a T comes the Abre-Alas, the opening wing of Guarnieri’s presentation. This group of sambistas, moving of course to the sound of the drums, wear bright, ornate, slightly exaggerated costumes presenting a hint of the time and place of the samba school’s theme, in this case nineteenth-century Amazon plantation ball gowns, their hoop skirts a little too wide, the bodices a little too grand, the bouffants a little too high; for the men, spats a little too long, frock coats a little too wide in the shoulders, top hats a little too high. This is the slave’s view of plantation life. The exaggeration is a making fun. The exaggeration also expresses victory over such a life.

  Immediately behind the Abre-Alas comes a huge float stating the literary theme of Guarnieri’s presentation. On the slowly moving truck invisible beneath the float is a mammoth book open for all to see the letters G.R.E.S. GUARNIERI (Gremio Recreativo Escola de Samba Guarnieri). It is desired that the spectator know that it is of history that the school portrays, a kind of written, authoritative history, which may be a kind of joke, too, or an exaggeration, as there is very little authoritative, written history.

  Then comes the Comissão de Frente, a line of formally dressed men doing a strolling samba. It is desired that the spectators accept these aging sambistas, honored for their contributions to past Carnival Parades, chosen for their grace and dignity, as the samba school’s board of directors. Few, if any, actually are directors. The real directors are working hard in the school’s parade, all sides of it at once. The presentation-dancers, drummers, floats on trucks and flatbeds, floats that are pushed by hand—must move at exactly one mile an hour, without gaps or holes, keeping the balances of colors and movements perfect.

  Behind this line of dignitaries comes the first and most distinguished dancing couple, the Porta Bandeira and the Mestre Sala, the Flag Bearer and the Room, or Dancing Master. These are mature people, in their prime, dressed in lavish eighteenth-century costumes regardless of the theme, those decided by everyone in the favela to be absolutely the best dancers, those dancers everyone else most enjoys watching. Their dance step is incredibly complicated, to most people an incomprehensible wonder, with patterns within patterns, movements within movements. They too must move forward in their dancing at exactly one mile per hour. And while she dances, the lady of the couple must carry a flag, the samba school’s emblem on one side, the symbol of that year’s theme on the other side, waving it so that both sides are visible to everyone.

  It is obligatory that every person in the parade, every dancer, dignitary, drummer, director working or parading must constantly be singing the samba enredo, the song presented by that school that year, as loudly and as well, as continuously, as he or she can.

  As the Alas come by, the theme of the school’s presentation becomes more and more clear, however broad the theme may be. An ala is a group of hundreds of vigorously dancing people identically dressed depicting some aspect of the theme. Here one Ala is costumed as Indians from the Amazon Basin, dancing steps suggestive of that cultural area. Another ala is again of plantation life, the costumes modified, of course, so that the beauty of the people of that favela, their flesh and movement, the joy of the dancers’ bodies may be revealed and enjoyed by all.

  In among the alas come the Figuras de Destaque, the prominent figures which relate to the theme, in this case mythically huge figures of Amazonian plumed birds and monkeys.

  All these groups cross in front of the bateria of drummers filling the air with sound in the bull pen.

  In da Costa’s box, Jetta in particular wilts. Her greatly abbreviated costume of a Foreign Legionnaire looks hot and heavy over her breasts and hips. Her back leans against a stanchion. Her chin is on her chest. Her eyes are open, watching, but glazed.

  The most important obligatory Ala of any presentation is that which honors the earliest history of the samba parade in Rio de Janeiro. After the drought of 1877, women who had emigrated from Bahia danced slowly down the main street of Rio in their long white gowns on the Sunday before Lent, inviting the men to join them, as they had done in Salvador. So here comes the Ala das Baianas, scores of older women, usually the blackest in the favela, dressed, dancing in the flowing white robes of Bahia.

  The passistas cause the greatest excitement and appreciation. Young people from the favela, the youngest fully formed, girls and boys, the most beautiful and most handsome, clearly the most athletic, as near naked as possible without being cumbersomely nude, dance down the parade route together acrobatically, tumbling, doing cartwheels, climbing each other, leaping off, being caught by others a centimeter before disaster, all the while singing, of course, doing all this in a choreography so intricate, so closely timed it has taken them the full year to study it, learn it, practice it. Some of the young men may have developed a capoeira routine which is so graceful while so vicious, so rife with genuine danger, that the sight of it might stop the spectator’s heart if the drums weren’t controlling the heart, keeping it going.

  Adrian Fawcett says something to Fletch.

  Fletch yells, “What?” but cannot hear even his own voice.

  Adrian cups his hands over Fletch’s ear and yells with his full voice, virtually taking a full breath to blow out each word: “Think if all this energy, planning, work, skill the year ‘round went into revolution instead!”

  Fletch nods that he heard him.

  Interspersed among the alas, a few alegorias have passed, huge floats depicting scenes from the Amazon, one a section of jungle bejeweled by women in G-strings suggesting plumed birds in their tall, bright, feathered headpieces; slim boys-men with the heads of snakes slithering over the rocks; children with the heads of monkeys dancing in the trees. Another alegoria depicts an Indian village, live fire centering thatched huts, costumed Indians dancing with mythical fish-headed and monster-headed figures.

  In the middle of the presentation comes a small float, a disguised pickup truck, really a sound truck with amplifiers aiming every direction. On the back of the truck-float, dressed formally like a nightclub singer, stands the Puxador de Samba, microphone close to mouth, singing over and over at fullest personal volume, belting out the lyrics of the samba school’s song for that year:

  Like the Amazon flows our history,

  Deep, mysterious and wide,

  Of many brooks and streams,

  Magically providing us with life.

  After a few more alas does the bateria begin to pull out of the bull pen and join the parade. An entire army of drummers, perhaps a thousand or more powerful men from the ages of fifteen to whenever, uniformly dressed in dazzling costume, all beating their drums in patterns practiced all year, all singing, all dancing despite the size of
their drums, pass by. The sound is overpowering. It is perhaps the maximum sound the earth and sky can accept without cracking, without breaking into fragments to move with it before dissipating into dust.

  Near the end of the parade comes the samba school’s principal alegoria. In this case, for Escola Guarnieri that year, a nineteenth-century riverboat slowly comes down the parade route, if not full-sized at least impressively huge—as white, as delicate, as ornate as a wedding cake. Its prow moves majestically down the street high above the heads of the bateria. The bridge is proud in its height. Steam comes from its funnels. The cap of its whistle funnel rises and lowers, and doubtlessly the sound of a steamboat whistle comes out, but so high is the level of sound generally that even a steamboat whistle cannot be heard fifteen meters away. The white, gleaming hull moves by slowly. The mere sight of the upper decks and into the interior cabins and ballroom of the ship instantly creates the feeling of a grander day, grander people, a grander way to travel, to move, to be. Sedately move the side wheels of this riverboat, exactly as if they were thrusting water behind them. And as the riverboat passes, its stern turned up to be high above the final dancing ala behind it, the last to disappear down the stream of swirling costumed dancers and drummers, instant yearning for it fills the heart, the instant and full desire to experience again the passing of this ghost, this alegoria of the past.

  “I think you’re going to have to tell me that there is life after Carnival,” Fletch said.

  At the bar table at the back of the box, Teo laughed and handed him a sandwich.

  Other people were coming to the back of the box for drinks and sandwiches.

  “Does everything become real again?” Fletch asked.

  Adrian Fawcett said, “Reality has hunkered down somewhere in my gut, assumed the fetal position, and promises only in whispers to return.”

  The sound level had lowered to the merely very loud. Across the parade route, the bateria of Escola Santos Lima was organizing itself in the bull pen.

  Jetta put her hand on Fletch’s shoulder. “Are you supposed to be some kind of a present?”

  She looked thoroughly sound-struck, sight-struck, mind-blown, and jaded.

  He smoothed his bright red sash.

  “I’m a present,” Fletch said. “Maybe I’m a past. Maybe I’m a future.”

  “And did you come par avion?”

  Chewing, Teo said, “Did you and Laura come by subway?”

  “Yes, Teo,” Fletch said honestly. “Never have I seen an underground transportation system so modern, so quiet, so clean.”

  Dressed like a Christmas package and as an eighteenth-century musician, Fletch and Laura had ridden Rio’s subway to Carnival Parade at Teo’s suggestion. Everyone had told them they could not get a car or a taxi within kilometers of Avenida Marques de Sapucai.

  The ten-year-old Janio Barreto had followed Fletch and Laura from The Hotel Yellow Parrot to Avenida Marques de Sapucai.

  In the subway station he ducked under the turnstile onto the platform. Fletch thought the underground official saw him, but the man took no notice. Who would keep a wooden-legged boy off public transportation because he had no money? On the train, Janio stood away from them, not looking at them, not speaking to them.

  Fletch pointed him out to Laura, briefly told her about him.

  She seemed particularly disturbed by being following by a small boy on a wooden leg.

  Janio hobbled after them through the dark back streets to the Carnival Parade. At the entrance to the boxes he was stopped. Security was very heavy there, very official. Even with tickets, Fletch and Laura physically had to force, squeeze themselves through the bodies of the guards. They would not let anyone, even or especially a ten-year-old boy on a wooden leg, through the entrance to the boxes without a ticket.

  “Yes.” Fletch was aware Teo was watching his face. “A magnificent subway.”

  The Italian racing-car driver came to the bar table. “There are some Indians out there calling for you.”

  “Me?” Fletch asked.

  The racing-car driver jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the area beyond the box rail.

  Laura was dancing in the center of the box with Aloisio da Silva. The heat had caused her leggings to drop over her patent leather shoes.

  On the packed earth between the box and the pavement of the parade route stood Toninho Braga, Orlando Velho, and Tito Granja. Again they were dressed as movie Indians. In that light, their shoulders and stomach ridges shone with sweat.

  “Jump down!” Toninho shouted.

  Fletch put perplexity on his face.

  Cupping his hand over his mouth, Orlando shouted, “We need to talk to you!”

  “Later!” yelled Fletch.

  “About Norival!” shouted Toninho.

  Tito waved his arm to encourage Fletch to jump down to them.

  Fletch turned around.

  Dancing with Aloisio, Laura’s eyes were on Fletch’s face.

  Her own face was so expressionless it was unfathomable.

  From behind him, Fletch heard the name Janio shouted.

  He jumped the three meters from the box down to the Tap Dancers.

  Twenty-nine

  Toninho clapped Fletch on the shoulder. “You look Brazilian with that red sash. Probably just the way you did fifty years ago.”

  “Laura brought it to me from Bahia.”

  The four young men walked along the area between the boxes and the parade route.

  Fletch said, “I was in a favela this morning. I don’t see how the people in a favela can afford to put on such a presentation, all these drums and costumes and floats.”

  “It takes every cruzeiro, and then some,” Toninho said. “By the way, I have lots of your money, your poker winnings, at my apartment. It’s safe there. And dry.”

  “Thousands of beautiful costumes,” Fletch mused. “Each must be individually made.”

  Tito said, “Everyone in a favela pays dues to the samba school every week. Also, the samba school gets some subsidy from the government for Carnival Parade. It’s good for tourism.”

  “The jogo do bicho,” Orlando said. “The jogo do bicho pays a lot.”

  “The illegal numbers game,” Toninho said. “The people who run the illegal numbers games give a lot of money to the samba schools for Carnival Parade. It’s their way of giving some of the money back, paying taxes—”

  “Because they’ve been stealing from the people all year,” Tito said. “Stealing their false hopes.”

  “It’s good public relations for jogo do bicho,” Tito said. “A business expense.”

  They had passed two or three of the judges’ viewing towers.

  Tito turned around and walked backwards. “Here comes Escola Santos Lima, Janio. Some of your descendants are parading.”

  “Escola Santos Lima has the best capoeiristas in all Rio de Janeiro,” Orlando said. “Maybe all Brazil. A huge what-would-you-say squadron of them.”

  Toninho held Fletch’s elbow. “Listen. Norival has not appeared.”

  “You miscalculated, Toninho. Miscalculated the currents. His body must have been carried out to sea.”

  “Not possible. Remember last night when I was swimming ashore? I swam into Norival. That proves that already he was floating toward the beach.”

  Against the noise of Carnival Parade the four young men held their heads close together as they walked.

  “It would be terrible if Norival were eaten by a shark,” Tito said.

  “You don’t see Norival as fish food?” Fletch asked.

  “If it looks like he has just disappeared,” Orlando asked practically, “how do we tell his family he is dead?”

  “His poor mother,” said Tito.

  “His father will be awfully angry,” said Toninho. “And Admiral Passarinho…”

  “They will never forgive us for burying Norival at sea without them,” Tito said.

  “How would they ever believe us?” asked Toninho.

&nbs
p; “You have a problem,” Fletch admitted.

  “The tide has been in and out and soon comes in again.” Toninho looked sick. He looked as if the tide, with all its wiggly life, were passing through his own stomach and head.

  “What do we do?” Orlando asked.

  Fletch said, “Got me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I haven’t any idea.”

  “You are our friend, Fletch.” Toninho still walked with Fletch’s elbow in hand. “You helped us with Norival.”

  “Now you must help us think,” said Tito.

  “I don’t think I can,” said Fletch. “Someone I know who is alive has disappeared. Other people tell me I died forty-seven years ago and must name my murderer. I haven’t slept. I am drunk with the sound of the drums. Norival has died and disappeared. Everything is becoming less real. How can I answer if I don’t understand?”

  They had walked half the length of the parade route.

  Fletch stopped. “I must go back.”

  “Yes,” said Tito. “He must see Santos Lima parade.”

  “You will tell us if you think of anything?” Toninho asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Now we cannot fish the whole ocean hoping to catch the corpse of Norival,” Orlando said.

  “We’ll telephone you,” Toninho said. “Tomorrow, after the parade is over.”

  If it were not for his wounds, Fletch would have been willing to believe that finally he fell asleep and dreamed the most horrible dream.

  As it was, later he was unsure of when he had been conscious and when he had been unconscious.

  Dizzy with sleeplessness, having somewhat the sensation of intoxication from the constant sound of Carnival drums, perhaps staggering a little, alone he began to walk back along the parade route to Teodomiro da Costa’s box. His eyelids were heavy, his vision diminished in that glaring light. The Abra-Alas of Escola Santos Lima passed by, the first alegoria reminding the spectators to expect a literary theme. The walk back to da Costa’s box seemed as big a chore as crossing all Brazil on foot. He was aware of the passing of the Commisão de Frente. He stopped, swaying, trying to focus in the glare on the dancing of the Porta Bandeira and the Mestre Sala. Their dance steps were too quick, too intricate for him to follow with his eyes. At the first ala, he staggered forward again, only dimly aware of the passing of the thousands of dancing, singing people, the swirling costumes and flesh to his right.