by João Almino
– I can’t see your photos but I can hear your chords. Next time, don’t forget to bring your guitar, I requested.
[July 11]
6. It was March in the window
– I know you’re a skeptic, Cadu. But we can’t abandon our goals. How to meet them, that’s the question, said Eduardo in the apartment at 104, before leaving for the airport.
– And Ana? May I contact her for this project? I asked. Ana was Eduardo’s ex-wife who still used the Kaufman name.
– To be honest, it’s not a priority. I doubt she could add anything.
– I took many pictures of her.
– Really?
– Beautiful ones. Before the suicide attempt, you must have known.
– Of course.
– And of her marriage to that idiot.
– I lost contact with her. Look, within the month I’ll be back for a tribute that Iris and the mediums of the Garden of Salvation are going to hold for Paulo Antonio. I want you to record it.
I called my brothers. Guga invited me to a party the following day. It would be at Paulo Marcos’s apartment—I hadn’t seen him in ages.
– A coincidence, everyone will be coming over. We’re expecting you, Paulo Marcos said on the phone.
Antonio invited me to lunch within the week. His wife was fine, his kids too, both of them so intelligent . . . I couldn’t stand listening to all this. The truth was that he endured his wife, tolerated her insults, but one day would yet pick up a gun and kill her, like in a carioca tragedy by Nelson Rodrigues. Or perhaps not, he was too much of a coward for that. He was an obedient and good husband, and immune to her assaults. He had a sense of duty and lived for his home and the education of his children, a young girl of thirteen and a boy of eleven.
– Still single? he asked me.
I served myself a twenty-five year old whiskey and, to pass the time, took stock of Eduardo’s apartment. I turned on one of his computers and started reading what was there. Eduardo had put locks on some programs and folders which of course heightened my curiosity. At that time I could have been a hacker if I had wanted. I unlocked everything easily. What secrets could I un-earth? I discovered that Eduardo had logged onto a site for “the hottest girls on the market, with discreet service for entrepreneurs and politicians,” where the photos he had clicked on most often were of a twenty-year old Nisei named Akiko. Akiko enchanted me. I thought about contacting her using an ID with the name Eduardo Kaufman.
By chance I found a list of names that was titled “Operation A.” I remembered what I’d read only that morning in the Folha de S. Paulo. I reread the article carefully. The Federal Police were investigating an alleged scheme of a slush fund run by the leaders of several political parties, amounting to thirty million reais distributed among almost eighty mayoral candidates in the state of São Paulo. The contributions came from about forty companies, several of them curiously located in the Amazon, clients or suppliers of a well-known state corporation, with headquarters right there in Brasília. The scheme also involved bribes by cashing checks based on fake receipts, and phony consulting contracts and monies from a state-owned corporation paying out money related to percentages designated both as fees and campaign contributions. A police source had leaked the information.
I imagined that a scheme of this kind could form part of Eduardo Kaufman’s strategy as he headed for the Central Plateau. The mayors who benefited would soon become his electoral captains in a bid for congress.
I served myself another whiskey. The block was quiet. Not even a horn could be heard. I liked that city. I just couldn’t stand being a civil servant like most people there. I couldn’t give up my freedom to say and do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. Working for Eduardo would be temporary. In no time I’d be able to survive on my own. For now Eduardo had allowed me to install a darkroom in his maid’s bathroom, but I intended to move it soon to a studio in one of the commercial spaces in the North Wing.
I brought my camera to the window. I sought clarity, black on white, to undo the mystery of the image and recover meaning in the disorder of the things before me. Photo # 6 orders dissimilar things, the natural and the artificial, the living and the dead, and makes them coexist forever naturally. There’s a shocking quality to it because it’s apparently meaningless and you can’t visage why it was created in the first place. The entire afternoon fit into that framed moment. It was March in the camera’s eye: the manacá blossoms in the foreground occupying the greater portion of my visual field, tingeing their white with pink. Nothing to indicate movement. A dead pigeon lies on the leaf-strewn ground, rigid, with its feet upturned. Four rows of empty chairs slice the photograph on a diagonal. A group of cleaning women, heading toward the left side, take their bosses’ dogs for walks. A sensuous sky turns the late afternoon crimson, painting the lawn with a wide swath of light. That could be my first photograph for the enormous flower panel that I intended to compose in honor of Brasília.
7. Quincas Borba and his owner
In Paulo Marcos’s apartment I found what I needed: a noisy group that filled me with energy and brought good omens. He lived in the North Wing, at the edge of the Water Hole Park. It wasn’t his ministry salary that paid for the leather chairs and sofas, the Persian carpet, the Belgian vase on the sideboard and the paintings by contemporary artists. The good taste and the money belonged to Tânia, his wife.
If Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes had seen Tânia pass by they would have composed their song for her, no matter how great the disadvantage of the North Wing with respect to Ipanema. A Parnassian poet would have compared her to a goddess, but I only say that she was full of grace and that her large black eyes shone with curiosity and intelligence. To complete her pale face, bright and fresh, add a tapered nose more perfect than that of any possible through plastic surgery, a cheerful mouth that made tiny French pouts as she spoke, small ears and short straight hair. I won’t even comment on her body to avoid creating the impression that I might have had second, third, or fourth intentions. I can say that it was neither thin like a model’s nor full like Marilyn Monroe’s. She had perfect measurements for someone like me who likes to feel that there’s a layer of soft flesh over the bones.
– As always, you look so . . . , she said when she saw me.
Although the word “so” had been suspended, alone, without any quality or defect to complement it, I was sure that the ellipsis printed on Tânia’s contented face was full of good adjectives.
I took a picture of Quincas Borba, the couple’s Weimaraner. After making his rounds of the living room, sniffing between the legs of everyone present, he rested his head on Tânia’s thighs. My brother Guga, disheveled, uncombed, and unshaven, smoked a joint. I think it was there, on that occasion, that I noticed for the first time a certain look Guga gave Tânia that I wouldn’t remember except for what happened long afterward. Future events, like magnifying glasses, enlarge almost imperceptible and apparently unimportant facts.
When he heard the click of my camera, Guga, who liked to quote left and right, repeated with a mysterious air the words he had uttered to me when I decided to be a photographer: “Man’s eye serves as a photograph of the invisible.”
– Guga came up with the name “Quincas Borba,” Tânia told me.
– We’re coming to a dead end, Guga mumbled one of his predictable phrases, continuing some conversation that I had missed.
He was paranoid and depressive, which only worsened with drug use. One day he could end up putting a bullet into his brain. His theories were almost always summed up by the observation that life was a long lament and nothing was worth the trouble.
– I wanted to ask your opinion about a project I have. In your field, literature. I’m thinking about writing a book, I told him.
– Are you a bum?
– Not yet, but I’ll get there.
– Transsexual?
– What do you think?
– If you’re not in the midst of any ethnic, cul
tural, or racial conflict, your story is of no interest. Unless you fill your story with violence, or write about some disaster.
– I have no literary pretensions. I want to be humbly precise about what I’ve seen and lived.
– So, what’s it about?
– It’s a kind of diary, using my photographs; shall we say: a photo diary.
– But still, there has to be a thread to your life to create the plot or the suspense. Or at least your story should be exemplary in some way: it should show that you were able to make something, even if it’s a family or a business, do you understand?
I got it. Because of my scatterbrained nature, I had in fact made nothing.
[July 12]
Besides Guga, among the invited guests I met an artist named after Escadinha (known as “Stepladder”), a famous old Rio criminal, and Marcela, the skinny girl with a narrow chin and black eyes I’d seen at Eduardo’s meeting.
Some years before, Stepladder had become famous with paintings made of excrement, odorless colored fecal materials, seen by some as beautiful, by others as endowed with superior critical intelligence. Now he was telling me that he was having success with digital photographs on display in the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center. I never called him by his real name. “Stepladder” was more suited to his character. There were diverging theories about why he had earned the nickname. For some, it was because he ingested a lot of cocaine. For others, because he knew how to escape, like the famous drug trafficker who had a helicopter land at a prison. I added a new theory to the others: because he rose rapidly in life.
– I never wanted to be a photographer, he said. I don’t understand squat about photography. But by chance the curator of a MASP exhibit simply looooved a work I made with my digital!
The photographs had been published in a book he showed me. They needed more contrast. Their colors were dim with poorly defined grains and blurry zones.
– I don’t care about technique, Cadu. I have the photographs printed in São Paulo. Sometimes I ask for adjustments. When they don’t turn out, I discard them.
– They’re beautiful! Marcela cried.
They weren’t. They had an overdose of visual effects, the night colors leaving multi-colored stripes on transvestites, criminals, prostitutes, cadavers . . .
Stepladder had gone to Papuda prison and showed us black-and-white photographs of several inmates he carried in a small portfolio.
– Do you remember the two guys involved in Berta’s murder? One of them is this fellow here.
I was shocked. I knew it was my son, whom I’d never even seen; the son of Berenice, Ana Kaufman’s current maid. With Berenice it had been a slip of mere minutes.
– I don’t care about paternity, Berenice had told me. I’m leaving here, to raise my son alone; I only want money for the trip and to set up my own business.
I gave her what I had and she’d kept her word to never come looking for me again.
In the snapshot Stepladder took, my son isn’t comfortable in front of the camera. A sudden movement, by someone who wants to get out of the field of vision, provokes a slight blur in his image. He looks inquisitive and dissatisfied. Part of his face, with an expressiveness accentuated by the bushy eyebrows, is hidden behind the arm that had perhaps been leaning on the wall and now served as a shield, making a movement as if for a fight, a dance, or a macumba step. That hairy muscular arm appearing in the foreground is covered in tattoos. The other arm is dropped, relaxed, with the hand resting on the waistband of his Bermudas, holding a cigarette between his fingers. The open shirt shows his muscular chest and hair. Tall and handsome, he doesn’t have the face of a murderer, but rather of a sincere young man who can be trusted.
I had always felt incomplete without a son by my side. If it weren’t for the stupidity of believing that the life of a bachelor and no children would help keep the flame of desire burning between me and Joana, I would have convinced her to go through fertility treatments and I would have had not one but several children with her. Despite that, I’d never wanted to search for my only child. Why not do it now? I imagined myself taking that photograph in Escadinha’s place. Mine would be different, it would have more respect for the person photographed; it would give my son dignity.
This second time I saw Marcela, my eyes penetrated the voluminous content of her black blouse. Who said that proud breasts stacked on a narrow waist couldn’t be attractive? It would be worth descending from those breasts down the exposed midriff, studying the form of the navel until pausing on the angular bones of those hips. I liked to guess whether the triangle between the legs had a little or a lot of hair, if the hairs were hidden down below or if they filled the entire surface of the triangle, if there had been waxing or not, and if this had been done in the form of a vertical rectangle or not. I concluded that Marcela was favored there also, where there was a protrusion out of proportion to a body poorly balanced on toothpick legs. I wasn’t a man with singular tastes. If I preferred Joana’s splendor and venerated Tânia’s classical shapes, I could also appreciate someone who from the back looked modest.
– A coincidence, right? Marcela said. The nose arriving ahead of her body marked her personality with a strong feature. She probably went to bed quite willingly, seriously and with dedication. The wide-open mouth of narrow lips, very narrow, and the absence of a chin reinforced the grace of that body.
– Hey, weren’t you in a soap opera? she asked.
Several years before, in a bit part on a soap opera, I’d had my twenty-four hours of fame as a handsome guy. My fame as a lousy actor, achieved at the same time, still lingered among those who hadn’t forgotten me.
Why did I feel so great? Perhaps it was because of Tânia’s comment, Marcela’s question, the good music, the good conversation and of course the good liquor as well. On second thought, the liquor was the deciding reason: four caipirinhas transformed me into a cheerful, good-looking man.
They say that alcohol makes you forget. I can guarantee that it also makes you remember. I remembered Aida. I hadn’t seen her in at least a decade. I had always had the greatest admiration for her. She was the one I could have married if she wasn’t already married. But I had never even dared to kiss her. Some years before, I got news of her separation. No one at the party knew her. I wondered, had she moved away from Brasília?
I agreed wholeheartedly with Marcela’s polite words about each dish and even about the temperature of the beer as a pretext to please her as well as the lady of the house. Our subject in common was Eduardo Kaufman’s project for the Garden of Salvation, which provoked Guga’s criticism:
– Tell your friend Eduardo not to mix religion and politics. Even before the Inquisition, spirituality provoked intolerance and conflicts. All the world’s fanatics, from all religions, think that their God is the best. They establish a direct communication channel with Him to justify every kind of prejudice: against other cultures, other religions, against those who have no religion, against gays . . . They make crusades, jihads, declare war. How much more peaceful the world would be if there were no religions.
– What are you talking about, Guga? You’re nuts. There’s no intolerance or war there. Iris invented a kind of ecumenical religion; they’re open to everything as long as it has a spiritual base, Marcela explained, with her soft voice, gesturing with her hands and raising her eyes heavenward like an altar saint, perhaps because she believed that the spiritual was sublime and superior.
In theory, except for the apocalyptic paranoid vision of things, I could agree with Guga. If it weren’t for Marcela’s presence I would shut up, because I couldn’t put it better than he had. But Marcela was worth my sacrifice and I argued in her defense. I gathered up every bit of intellect and knowledge that I could and gave my opinion that . . .
It doesn’t matter and actually I’ve already forgotten about it. The main thing was that my words were an introduction to an invitation to Marcela. I proposed seeing a light comedy at the Pier. Since the lines
were long I skipped the pretense and we fell into apartment 104. Marcela was no Joana, but I was pragmatic. Better a pigeon in the hand.
She wanted to see my photographs. After I showed her the main portfolios and explained my current projects to her, the pigeon escaped from my hands, scampered about the living room and the bedroom, avoiding me, and then flew away. But she left me a promise: she thought it would be fun to be a model for one of my projects.
The next day, the operator informed me that Aida’s telephone number was unlisted. I Googled her. Three results: Aida, alongside her son in City Park, was being interviewed on the condition of public bathrooms; Aida signing a petition in support of the homeless; and a notice from the Ministry saying that emails should be sent to her, head of the personnel department. She was separated, and had been for some time. Would she have remarried? Did she have a boyfriend?
I examined the photos from the previous day in the camera. I deleted all of them but one, # 7 (above). Quincas Borba rests his head on Tânia’s thighs; she is seated on the floor in a lotus position. The silky coat on his forehead reflects the natural light coming in through the window. There is something human about his expression. Perhaps he doesn’t like Guga’s longing look at Tânia, a look that doesn’t appear in the photograph but that is viscerally associated with it. The crease between the eyes denotes some concern or an air of suffering, and the sidelong glance at the camera is one of mistrust. I set aside that photo and another ten to illustrate the diary that I would start to write and that would go back to my last days in Rio.
July 14
Liberté, égalité, intimité. Laura and I developed a working relationship that will never, as is proper, go beyond an exchange of friendly, playful words. I clasped her hands. I touched her soft hairless arms and thus reinforced the conviction that she has native blood. Her scent reminds me of Joana. I asked if I could take her picture. I chose the angle. I snapped the camera several times. Of course I couldn’t see the result, but each photograph is associated with the smile that I imagined on her face, the words that I heard from her mouth and the smell and delicacy of her hands.