Crimes of August: A Novel: 5 (Brazilian Literature in Translation Series)

by Rubem Fonseca

  As Mattos was drafting the written report, the commissioner showed up.

  “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” Mattos told the defendant’s lawyer, who was present. He took Ramos by the arm and led him to the hallway.

  “Pretend you haven’t gotten here yet. Let me finish this booking.”

  “The lawyer saw me.”

  “He’s a jailhouse shyster. Don’t worry.”

  “What’s the statute?”

  “Article 129. Husband and wife.”

  “Husband and wife? You’re going to clap the guy in jail just because he cuffed his wife around?”

  “Precisely because of that. To me, it being his wife is an aggravating factor.”

  “But not to the law,” said Ramos, stifling his irritation. “I took a look at the woman and couldn’t see any signs of injury.”

  “They’re under her dress. I’m going to order a corpus delicti exam done on her.”

  “You’re being more Catholic than the pope. I can guarantee you the woman’s going to side against us. They’re always against us.”

  “Everybody’s against us, always.”

  “When it goes to trial, even that ambulance chaser will get the husband off. You know what’s going to happen at trial?”

  “Yes. The woman is going to tell the judge that the bruises found in the corpus delicti exam were caused by me.”

  “More or less that. Let it go. ‘When husband and wife fight, stay out of sight.’”

  On a certain occasion, Rosalvo, who had just finished law school and was studying forensic psychology at the Police Academy, had described Ramos, using haphazardly theories of Bertillon, Kraeplin, and Kretschmer: trapezoidal cheeks, orthognathous profile, deviated parietals, square skull, squat composition, tenacious temperament. Tenacious, squat, orthognathous.

  Mattos laughed scornfully.

  “You’re laughing? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” said the inspector, frowning again. “I’m going to finish the booking.”

  Perpetrator, victim, lawyer, and clerk were waiting for the inspector.

  “So then, sir, is everything resolved?” said the lawyer.

  “Everything. We’re going ahead with the booking.”

  “Sir, my client acted motivated by defense of his honor, immediately after being unjustly provoked by the victim.”

  “Tell it to the judge.”

  “Sir, even you, an educated individual, unlike my client who’s a stevedore at the docks, a coarse illiterate man, even you would lose patience if your wife told you what the wife of my client told him.”

  “I already apologized,” murmured the woman humbly, from the back of the room.

  “She’s sorry, she knows she made a mistake, she’s apologized. Didn’t you hear her?” said the lawyer.

  “This is a crime calling for public action. I’m not interested in the victim’s opinion. We’re continuing with the booking.”

  “Sir, she called my client a limp-dick. Is there a husband alive who can hear his own wife call him a limp-dick without losing his head? Well? Give me a break!”

  “There’s no one with more authority to call a guy a limp-dick than his own wife,” said the inspector.

  The accusation was written up and signed, and the woman sent for the corpus delicti examination. The husband paid a small bail as stipulated by law and was then released.

  Mattos took an antacid from his pocket, stuck it in his mouth, chewed, mixed it with saliva, and swallowed. He had complied with the law. Had he made the world any better?

  MEANWHILE, DOWNTOWN, Salete Rodrigues, wearing a wool two-piece jersey outfit that the magazine A Cigarra said had been launched by existentialists, took the elevator in a building on Avenida Treze de Maio and got out on the twelfth floor, the location of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

  “May I help you?” asked a receptionist behind a counter.

  Salete said she wanted to enroll in the secretarial training program. She was informed that the courses were Portuguese, mathematics, and typing. There were night classes and day classes. To enroll, the candidate had to have a middle-school diploma.

  Salete’s face turned red when she heard this. She thanked the woman and left hurriedly.

  She was nervous as she waited in the hall for the elevator. She felt sure the receptionist, seeing her flushed cheeks, had guessed everything, that she had only gone through elementary school and had no middle-school diploma to show. In July, she could have gotten a job in the Senate. She was with Magalhães at the Beguine nightclub, watching a show by the existentialist Serge Singer, when Magalhães had told her, “I’m going to get you a job in the Senate.” Magalhães had lots of buddies among the senators, and it would be easy to arrange a job. “You don’t even have to go there, just pick up your check at the end of the month.” She had told Magalhães that she “had little education,” and he had replied that the Senate was full of people who had “come in through the window” and boarded the happiness train, as it was called. She had become frightened and asked Magalhães not to do anything. Now, whenever she heard her favorite program on the radio, which was called The Happiness Train, she repented of not having accepted the offer. After all, she could have learned how to type; she had even gone to a typing school in a house on Rua da Carioca and seen a bunch of scrubby mulatto women banging away at keyboards. If those wretched women could learn to type, so could she.

  When she got to the street, she felt great consolation in noting that men turned their heads to watch her go by. She killed some time in the downtown area in order to catch the two o’clock showing of The Robe, with Victor Mature, at the Palácio theater. She cried during the film.

  It was still early to go to Mother Ingrácia’s spiritualist center, in the Rocha favela. In a pharmacy she bought a bottle of Vanadiol, which the radio claimed was good for the nerves. She walked down Gonçalves Dias, Ouvidor, and Uruguaiana, looking at the shop windows. She entered the A Moda clothes store and asked to try on a dress she saw in the window.

  “The store doesn’t live up to its name,” she told the saleslady. “It’s very démodé.”

  Since there was little movement in the store, Salete and the saleslady soon began trading confidences in hushed tones. The saleslady confessed she couldn’t take working in that place anymore; the manager was a shrew. Salete said that neither was her life anything great. She loved one man and was living with another; what saved her was having money to buy clothes. When she felt really unhappy, she explained, she would buy a new dress, one of those models that made people look at her on the street. She liked to have people look at her when she was well dressed. That helped her feel a bit more, a bit more, uh, free.

  “Elegant clothes have helped me get ahead in life.”

  Seeing that the woman was understanding, Salete spoke of her past, even knowing that it was mean to put ideas in the head of a woman with neither the face nor the body to advance in life.

  If she weren’t always elegant, she’d still be in Dona Floripes’s house on Rua Mem de Sá, near the Red Cross hospital, fucking bank tellers and salesmen. She told how she’d had the strength to disdain bad advice and bad influences, like those of the madam Floripes, who told her to save her money for the lean years: “Whores have a short shelf life. The breasts can sag overnight. And then there’s cellulite. Stop spending everything on clothes and accessories.” If not for the clothes and accessories, she wouldn’t have been noticed by the important men she came to socialize with, politicians, people from high society, big shots in government, and today she would be wearing toilet water instead of French perfume.

  “But you have to have a nicely formed body for clothes to fit well.”

  Around 12:30 p.m. she went for lunch at the Colombo. Magalhães said the Colombo was no longer frequented by upper-class people like in the past, but she loved to enter that large dining room with its high mirror-covered walls, was moved by the small orchestra playing Strauss waltzes. She ha
d seen such lovely things only in Europe, when she traveled with Magalhães.

  After the movie, she took a taxi to the spiritualist center. She handed Mother Ingrácia the undershorts that she had taken from Mattos’s apartment for the old woman to work her magic.

  When she got to her apartment, she called Magalhães and said she’d like to go to a nightclub that evening. Salete wanted to go to the Beguine, but Magalhães said he needed to meet someone at the Night and Day.

  The nightclub was housed in the mezzanine of the Hotel Serrador, in Cinelândia on the corner of Rua Senador Dantas, between two movie theaters: the Odeon, on the left, and the Palácio, on the right. From the glassed-in window of the nightclub could be seen the eastern side of the congressional building, the Monroe Palace, deserted at that hour. Further to the right, the dark stain of the gardens of the Passeio Público stood out amidst the lights of the movie theater façades.

  “Can you arrange for me to go to the tea at the Vogue, on Sundays? Yesterday I tried and wasn’t allowed in.”

  “What do you want in that thé dansant?” Magalhães knew that only rich young men and women frequented Sunday afternoons at the Vogue. They would never let a whore in.

  “I wanted to hear Fats Elpídio’s band.”

  “There are a thousand other places where you can hear Fats Elpídio’s band. It doesn’t have to be in the middle of those shitty bourgeois canapé eaters.”

  Shortly before the beginning of the midnight show, the maître d’ brought to Magalhães a man whose dark bookkeeper’s suit clashed with the tussahs, linens, and white Panamas of the other men present.

  “Sit down,” Magalhães said.

  The man sat down, after nodding in Salete’s direction in a small gesture of courtesy.

  “Did the Japanese send the parcel?”

  “Mr. Matsubara asked me to give you this,” said the man drily, taking an envelope from his pocket. Only then did Magalhães realize, in the dim light of the nightclub, that the recently arrived man was a Nisei.

  “Did you come directly from Marília?” asked Magalhães, putting the envelope in his pocket? “Did you have a good trip?” he added, trying to be amiable.

  The Nisei didn’t reply. He stood up. “Any message for Mr. Matsubara?”

  “Tell him his contribution won’t be forgotten.”

  The man turned his back, this time without acknowledging anyone, and left.

  In the envelope was a check for five hundred thousand cruzeiros, a contribution to the campaign of Deputy Roberto Alves, private secretary of the president. Recently, Matsubara had obtained a loan of sixteen million from the Bank of Brazil.

  Magalhães gestured to the maître d’, who came over.

  “Champagne,” Magalhães said.

  “Any preference? We have Veuve Cliquot, Taittinger, René Lamotte, Moët et Chandon, Krug, Pol Roger,” recited the maître d’ proudly.

  GREGÓRIO FORTUNATO WAS SURPRISED that only a few politicians, like Gustavo Capanema, noticed the mood changes that were occurring lately in the president. He had heard Capanema, who had been Mr. Getúlio’s secretary of education during the time of the dictatorship and was now leader of the government party in the Chamber of Deputies, whisper at a gathering, “In the twenty years I’ve known Getúlio, he’s gone from a happy and outgoing man to sad and reserved.” Everyone thought the cause was age, which made people unhappy, but the president wasn’t old, he was Getúlio Vargas, one of those men who are ageless. Gregório knew the reasons for the president’s unhappiness: the hurt caused by all the betrayals he had suffered, the heartbreak over the cowardice of his allies. Major Fitipaldi, one of his military advisers, said that the friends of the president, who had been the beneficiaries of honors and rewards, were nothing but hypocrites and traitors. If there was a man in the world who deserved to be happy, because of all he had done for the poor and humble, that man was Getúlio.

  Gregório’s thoughts were interrupted by a telephone call from his wife, Juracy. They had an unpleasant exchange. The head of the guard disliked hearing her complain that he was becoming a visitor in his own home and hung up the phone.

  Immediately afterward, he received a call from Magalhães.

  “I’ve got the Japanese money.”

  “Don’t say anything to Roberto. Bring the check to me.”

  “Won’t it bother him if he finds out?”

  “I’ve known Roberto from the time he used to clean Mr. Getúlio’s latrine on his ranch in Itu, when we were in exile. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Mr. Lodi wants a meeting with you.”

  “I was with the deputy here in my room in the palace, I know what he wants.”

  “About the Cemtex license—”

  “The license has already been issued. It wasn’t easy. Fifty million dollars is a lot of money.”

  “Good lord! Is there any way to change the license to another company? That’s what I wanted to talk to you about yesterday. The name of the other company is—”

  “You think the government is some damn whorehouse? You think anything goes? Now you come to me with that? After all the problems I faced to get the license granted?”

  “The president of Cemtex was murdered. That changes everything. You could say a few words to Souza Dantas—”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Please, lieutenant, for the love of God, the license has to be transferred to that other company, Brasfesa.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Your part is at stake.”

  “A cat doesn’t eat a man’s food. Tell your friends that.”

  After he hung up, Gregório jotted down on a piece of paper his conversation with Magalhães. In his home he kept a file with confidential information that he deemed important to record; in a folder he would put what he had said to Magalhães about Cemtex and Brasfesa. He needed to arrange a safe place for that folder; his relationship with Juracy was getting worse by the day, because of the woman’s idiotic jealousy. “One of these days I’m going to do something crazy,” she had said, in the middle of an argument. A jealous woman was capable of anything.

  three

  IT WAS SIX IN THE MORNING when Mattos’s telephone rang.

  “It’s me.”

  Silence.

  “Remember me?” Alice.

  Only three years had gone by.

  “I know you like to get up early, that’s why I called at this hour . . .”

  It was as if he were at the edge of an abyss, ready to fall. Three years earlier he had called Alice’s home, her mother had come to the phone and said that Alice didn’t want to talk to him and for him not to call again.

  Alice had traveled abroad, spent six months in Europe. Upon her return she had married some society type whose name he didn’t remember. Three years.

  On the edge of the abyss.

  “I’d like to see you. Have tea. How about at the Cavé? They haven’t closed the Cavé, have they?”

  “No. I passed by there the other day.”

  “Can you? Today? At five?”

  “All right.”

  After he hung up, the inspector remembered he had an appointment with Mr. Emilio, the maestro, at 5:30 p.m. Since he had the time, as it was still early, he decided to honor Mr. Emilio by listening to La Traviata. The recording he owned, made at La Scala in Milan in 1935, wasn’t complete, running only 111 minutes, lacking the aria “No, non udrai rimproveri,” the Germont cabaletta at the end of Act 2, Scene 1. There were thirteen 78-rpm disks, which couldn’t be stacked on the record player. Every eight minutes the inspector had to change the record. Sometimes that irritated him. So, even before hearing all the disks, still in the second act, Mattos turned off the phonograph, put the disks back in the album, and left.

  Mattos had asked Rosalvo to investigate the backgrounds of Paulo Gomes Aguiar, Claudio Aguiar, and Vitor Freitas. He hadn’t mentioned Luiz Magalhães.

  “Paulo Machado Gomes Aguiar,” said Rosalvo, consulting a notepad in his hand, “Brazilian,
white, born here in the Federal District on January 12, 1924. Father a doctor, mother a housewife, both deceased. Studied at the São Joaquim secondary school and the National Law School, where he graduated in 1947. Never practiced law. In 1950 he married Luciana Borges, a banker’s daughter. Seems he married for money. In 1951 he founded the Cemtex import-export firm, which quickly became one of the largest in the country. He has contacts with high-placed government officials. Appears to be the figurehead for foreign groups. I read in the Tribuna—”

  “Leave the political intrigues till the end. First the facts.”

  “Cemtex’s shady deals are a fact. For example, the firm obtained an import license from Cexim worth fifty million dollars. The Bank of Brazil never gave that much money to anyone; it’s plain as day that it’s one more underhanded trick by some bigwig at the top. Gomes Aguiar was a friend of senator Vitor Freitas, who’s probably one of those clearing the path for him.”

  “Continue.”

  “Gomes Aguiar had a very active social life. I went through a collection of old newspapers and saw photos of him with Vitor Freitas in the society columns. And also with his cousin and other upper-crust types, especially Pedro Lomagno, son of the late Lomagno, the coffee king.”

  “Continue.”

  “Claudio, the cousin, also studied at the São Joaquim. Then he left the country and stayed away for a long time; his father was a diplomat or some such thing. He studied economics in London. As for Senator Freitas, it’s possible that he frequents the ‘Senate Annex.’ Those playboy senators, when they get tired of making speeches, are in the habit of crossing the street for a relaxing lay. They say the girls at the annex are marvelous.”

  “Where is that annex?”

  “You don’t know?” Rosalvo was surprised, but he pretended to be very surprised. “It’s in the São Borja Building, 227 Avenida Rio Branco, right across from the Senate. Very handy. I feel like going there, but they say the madam is a tough old bird, and she’s not going to rat out guys with clout just like that. It’d be good for us to meet one of the whores the senator is screwing.”