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

by Rubem Fonseca

  The doctor’s office was in Copacabana, on Rua Barata Ribeiro. The inspector saw in the street many women carrying on their heads and in their hands cans, buckets, pots, and teakettles filled with water.

  “I don’t even have water to wash my hands,” was the first thing the radiologist told him. “My wife went out this morning with the maid. It’s absurd. She didn’t even make breakfast. Yesterday it was the same thing. My children’s school closed for lack of water, and there haven’t been any classes for three days. I’m washing my hands with bottled water. Meanwhile, the politicians make speeches, everybody makes speeches, but nobody solves the problem of lack of water.”

  With dramatic gestures, as if to demonstrate the gravity of the situation, the doctor opened a bottle of São Lourenço water and used it to wash his hands in the small sink in the consultation room.

  “How are your stools? Very dark?”

  “I always forget to check.”

  “You have to take care of your health. The hemoglobin count from your blood test indicates that you’re having gastric hemorrhaging. We’ll see what the x-ray has to say.”

  “I take care of my health. I always carry antacids in my pocket and drink milk all the time.”

  The radiologist handed him a glass with a thick beige-colored liquid.

  “What’s this concoction that I’m drinking?” The taste of dirt mixed with chalk, similar to the taste of the whitewash on walls he sometimes ate when he was a child.

  “Barium. For the contrast.”

  Mattos took off his clothes, put on a gown, and lay down on the x-ray table.

  The x-rays were taken.

  “You may suffer some constipation because of the barium,” the radiologist said.

  A CHECK OF FINGERPRINTS with the Félix Pacheco Institute confirmed that the corpse identified by Mattos at the morgue was Ibrahim Assad.

  Mattos had asked Leonídio to record the name of whoever came to the morgue to claim the body and provide him with the information at once. For three days the cadaver had remained in the refrigerator, without receiving a single visitor. Administrative measures were being taken for Assad to be buried as an indigent when an employee of the Santa Clara mortuary showed up to embalm the body.

  “The remains are going to be transported to Caxambu, in Minas, to be buried,” Leonídio said. “The body snatcher says he doesn’t know who paid the expenses.”

  In the office of the Santa Clara funeral home, an employee received Mattos and explained that the person who had paid the costs of embalming and transport of the body had asked for his act of charity to be anonymous.

  “That person knows the mother of the deceased, a lady without resources . . . There are still good people in this world capable of a disinterested act of kindness . . .”

  Mattos, who until then had not said he was from the police, showed his ID. His stomach felt heavy because of the barium he’d taken for the x-ray, but at the same time he believed the test had improved his health, and that he was cured.

  “I’m investigating a murder. Tell me who paid the costs.”

  “You put me in a difficult position.”

  “Out with it. I’ve got a lot ahead of me today.”

  “A difficult situation . . .”

  “Do you prefer to go the precinct with me?”

  “It was a police officer, like you.”

  “His name.”

  The employee wiped sweat from his forehead with a purple handkerchief he took from his pocket. “Mr. Ubaldo Pádua.”

  THE MAYOR OF NEW ORLEANS, Lesseps S. Morrison, received by President Vargas, said that Rio de Janeiro was still, despite a degree of pessimism among some of its people, one of the most pleasant cities, and certainly the most beautiful city, on earth.

  Morrison, visiting Rio for the third time, accompanied Henry Kaiser, one of the kings of the American automotive industry.

  In the audience with the president of the Republic, Kaiser assured that his firm was ready to transport immediately to Brazil a factory with an annual production capacity of fifty thousand automobiles intended for the domestic market and for export.

  Also present at the meeting were Secretary Oswaldo Aranha, the American Ambassador James Kemper, and Mr. Herbert Moses.

  When the Americans left the interview, Kaiser commented in the car taking them from the Catete to the Hotel Copacabana Palace that from the photos of Vargas he’d seen in the United States, always smiling and with a cigar in his mouth, he expected him to be a happy and good-natured person; he had been surprised by the president’s melancholy and somber appearance.

  “He must be sick,” said Kemper, who had also noticed Vargas’s sadness. “It’s the only explanation for his depression.”

  Morrison ventured the hypothesis, quickly accepted by the others, that the president might have the same flu virus that he had caught upon arriving in Brazil. “It was very kind of him to receive us in that condition.”

  MATTOS TRIED ALL DAY to locate Pádua.

  When he got home, Alice was sitting in the living room writing in a thick notebook with a leather cover.

  “My diary. But it’s not really a diary, it’s more a book of thoughts. I was writing about the death of Colette, what it means to me. I wrote down what you said to me that day: I have other deaths to worry about.”

  “I said that?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I read it?”

  Alice closed the notebook. “No one has ever read my diary. I’ve never shown it to anyone in this world. Especially you. One day, when we were seeing each other, I gave you a poem I had written, and you laughed, saying it was funny.”

  “I don’t remember that.”

  “You don’t like poetry.”

  “I never told you I don’t like poetry.”

  “You only like opera. Because when you were a little boy your mother would play ‘Una furtiva lagrima’ on the Victrola, and you would cry.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “It was you who told me.”

  “Making up that business about me not liking poetry.”

  “A policeman can’t like poetry. He has other deaths to worry about.”

  “Did you look for an apartment to rent?”

  “I didn’t have time. Know what I’d have liked to do these days? I’d have liked to go to São Paulo to the International Writers Conference, but you didn’t even think about taking me.”

  “You didn’t mention it to me. In any case, I couldn’t leave Rio. I’m in the middle of a very difficult investigation.”

  “Please don’t yell at me.”

  “I’m not yelling.”

  “Try to control your aggressiveness for a minute and listen to what I’m going to read to you now.” Alice displayed a sheet of paper in her hand. “Can you do that? One minute?”

  “All right.”

  “Let’s go sit in the bedroom.”

  Mattos took of his coat. Now, owing to the present of Alice in the apartment, he left his revolver at the station.

  They sat on the bed. “May I read?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Declaration of Principles of the Conference on Poetry. Are you paying attention?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “See how it is? You can’t hide your impatience.”

  “Please, read, I’m paying total attention.”

  “The poetry section of the International Writers Conference, meeting in São Paulo, during ceremonies commemorating the quadricentennial of the city in whose foundation collaborated the poet-priest José de Anchieta, recognizes the considerable technical progress that has characterized poetry, both international and Brazilian, systematized by critics of the most diverse conceptions; proclaims the broad right of the poet to aesthetic search and the necessity that he dominate his instrument in order to enrich creation; and manifests not only the conviction that conquests of form will be directed toward expressing great collective aspirations, belief in human beings and in individual rights, as
well as confidence that there will be found in all its fullness the way to reach the sensitivity of the man of today—that’s directed straight at you, Alberto—the man of today unattuned to the poetry of high quality that is being published.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Interesting? Do you know who’s in São Paulo at this very moment? Robert Frost, William Faulkner, Miguel Torga, João Cabral de Melo Neto. And all you can say is ‘interesting.’”

  “Wonderful.”

  Alice tore up the paper she was holding. With closed fists she beat against Mattos’s chest, saying that he couldn’t treat her so cruelly. Her blows were weak; Mattos let her go on striking him until she tired.

  Leaving Alice lying on the bed, now immobile as if dead, Mattos went back to the living room. His stomach hurt, but there was no milk in the refrigerator, and he had run out of antacids.

  The telephone rang.

  “This is Pedro Lomagno. Is my wife there?”

  “She’s sleeping.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  “She’s sleeping.”

  “You’re aware that my wife . . . uh . . . has problems . . . I spoke to the doctor and he told me it would be best for Alice to come home . . . She feels more protected in familiar surroundings . . . I’d like to have your help for that . . .”

  “Mr. Lomagno, I don’t feel good about this situation either. But Alice is here because she wants to be. She told me she’s separated from you. She asked to stay here, because she doesn’t have a family member to stay with. I don’t think it’s a good solution either, but I can’t throw her out . . .”

  “I’d like to hear her say that.”

  “You spoke with her yesterday, I believe, and she said something to that effect. I’m very sorry, Mr. Lomagno, but there’s nothing I can do.”

  “I’d like to talk to her again.”

  “I already told you she’s sleeping.”

  “You’re not cooperating.”

  “I’m very sorry. Good evening.”

  As soon as Mattos hung up, the phone rang again.

  “You been looking for me?”

  “I wanted to talk about your crisis of conscience.”

  “What crisis? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “If not remorse, what made you pay for the burial of Old Turk in Caxambu?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Pádua, I know you killed Old Turk. I can’t just do nothing, knowing what I do. I can’t be an accomplice.”

  “You’re not being an accomplice. You’re gonna do nothing simply ’cause there’s nothing you can do.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “No, you can’t. I know you’re a good cop, but not even Sherlock Holmes could prove I killed that guy. Mattos, Old Turk was a hired killer, he was going to kill you. You need to stop suffering over nonsense. That’s why you have the ulcer. When you come to relieve me, day after tomorrow, we’ll talk more about the matter if you want to.” Pause. Trying to change the subject: “Did you hear that Arlindo Pimenta is running for city council?”

  “I’m not interested in that.”

  “The numbers men are gonna take over the country yet. I know a very interesting story about Arlindo.”

  “Not interested.” Mattos hung up the phone.

  This was the story Mattos had refused to hear:

  The numbers game bankroller Arlindo Pimenta, commonly called a gangster in the newspapers because of the flashy manner in which he conducted other criminal activities besides financing the numbers game, had been advised by his lawyer and his fellow lawbreakers to change his negative image. Heeding their counsel, Arlindo promised that he would continue exercising, with proper decorum, only the illegality of the numbers game; he sold the Cadillac in which he ostentatiously circulated in the outskirts of the city; stopped causing disturbances in bars; and, finally, became a candidate for alderman.

  Arlindo launched his candidacy on his birthday. On Rua Leopoldina Rego, on the outskirts, an election party was held with speeches and fireworks. A large table of sweets and savories displayed in its center an outsized birthday cake representing a Chinese garden with an enormous pagoda, which provoked wonder, and even astonishment, among the guests. The cake maker, following the request of one of Arlindo’s thugs who wished to curry favor with his boss, placed in the middle of the Chinese garden a marzipan miniature of a .38 revolver. A small birthday candle was placed in the barrel of the revolver. Arlindo Pimenta, amid applause, blew it out with a single puff.

  nineteen

  THE BURN that Salete had caused on Mattos’s hand with boiling water had healed, created a scab, and the inspector had removed the scab, but Salete knew nothing of that, because she hadn’t appeared at the inspector’s apartment since Alice had moved there. Alice had answered the phone the two times she called Mattos’s home. Salete had hung up without saying anything.

  Days of suffering. She lacked the will to leave the house. She didn’t go to the benefit tea for the Maronites, at the Monte Líbano club, featuring a fashion show by Elsa Haouche, the designer whose dresses she most appreciated, and even knowing that Mário Mascarenhas, her favorite musician, accompanied by fifteen other accordionists, would be playing classical and folkloric music. She forewent seeing the film Mogambo, with Clark Gable and Ava Gardner, whom she adored. She felt so unhappy that she didn’t even have her toenails and fingernails done.

  She cried in the corners, didn’t eat, lost weight, and her eyes looked even larger and her face bonier, which increased her anguish, because she thought it worsened her ugliness. Actually, her slimness made her face appear even prettier.

  She was suffering from her irremediable misfortune when Luiz Magalhães telephoned. Lately Salete had refused to speak with him, telling the maid to say she was very ill. That Thursday she went to the phone. Magalhães said he needed her to do him a big favor. When Salete again refused to see him, Magalhães begged, in such a humble manner that it left her disturbed:

  “I’m in a tight spot, I need you. For the love of God, help me.”

  “I don’t have the strength to leave. I look very ugly, I don’t want anyone to see me.”

  “It’s a quick thing. I’ll pick you up in a cab, we’ll go downtown and take care of everything in a few minutes.”

  Magalhães arrived with a wide black briefcase, stuffed to the point of bulging. He seemed extremely worried, looking repeatedly through the car’s rearview mirror as if he were being followed. The entire time, he clutched the case against his body.

  “Where are we going?” Salete asked.

  “I’ll explain later,” said Magalhães, looking suspiciously at the driver.

  They got out on Avenida Rio Branco, near Rua do Ouvidor.

  The two of them, with Magalhães always hugging the briefcase to his chest, walked quickly along Ouvidor to the corner of Rua da Quitanda.

  “Here it is,” said Magalhães. They went into a building. On the door Salete could read Sul América—Securities and Capitalization.

  Magalhães stopped in the building’s ample lobby. He explained in a low voice, looking fearfully to all sides, that he was renting a safe-deposit box in Salete’s name. In the box he would keep some very valuable things, which she would later return to him when he came back from the trip he was taking the next day.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to Uruguay. When things get better, I’ll come back. But that doesn’t matter,” said Magalhães impatiently.

  “Why don’t you rent a box in your name?”

  Magalhães explained that he had many powerful enemies who could break into the strongbox and take out the things in it. Those enemies would not be looking for a box in her name.

  “Thank you for trusting me,” Salete said.

  Magalhães couldn’t rent a box in the name of his wife or any other relative. It was too risky. Salete was the only possible option. But in any case, he had total trust in the girl.

  A Sul Améric
a clerk filled out forms with Salete’s identity information. The girl signed the papers. Then, in a secure room, they put Magalhães’s briefcase in a lockbox. A key, with a number, was handed to Salete.

  “You mustn’t lose this key,” said the clerk.

  “That’s right,” said Magalhães. “Where are you going to keep the key?”

  “Leave it to me. I’ll hide it in a place where no one will find it no matter how hard they look.”

  As they left, still in the lobby, Salete took Magalhães by the arm.

  “But there’s something you need to know.”

  “What is it? Tell me now. I’m in a big hurry.”

  “I like another man.”

  “Right. But don’t tell him about what we did here today.”

  “You said you’d kill me if I liked another man.”

  “When I get back, we’ll talk about it. You can’t lose that key, you hear?” Seeing the disappointment on Salete’s face, Magalhães added, joking, nervously, “I still like you a lot. When I return, I’ll kill you.”

  “You don’t like me at all. It was all a lie.”

  “I have to go. I deposited a lot of money in your bank account.” Magalhães kissed the girl on the cheek and withdrew, almost running, his footsteps echoing on the marble floor of the lobby.

  Salete stood there, the key in her hand.

  “It was all a lie,” she murmured.

  THE PRINCIPALS INVOLVED in the Tonelero attack were exhibited to the press, at Galeão air base, at ten a.m. During the presentation certain information was provided by the military officers. The statements by the accused, although requested, were not furnished to the press, and the journalists had to be content with the sparse information given them during the presentation.

  The first marched past the journalists was Lieutenant Gregório. In coat and tie, as always, he remained silent, his brow furrowed. His participation in the attack was known to all. The high decoration he had received from the army, the Maria Quitéria Medal, had been rescinded. His confession, according to the military, had been complete, claiming responsibility as the mastermind. It wouldn’t be until two days later, in another interrogation, that Gregório would say Deputy Euvaldo Lodi had visited him in his room at the Catete Palace and proposed “bombarding” Lacerda, so the military men did not mention the deputy’s name in the presentation. Nor did they mention, for the same reason—they were still unaware of the fact—that on the eve of the dissolution of the personal guard on August 8, upon learning that the president had told his adjutant Major Accioly to summon to the palace his brother Benjamim from Petropolis, Gregório had jumped the gun and had met Benjamim in that city; and that upon his return to Rio, traveling in the same car, Gregório had confessed to Benjamim that he had given orders to murder Lacerda. (This last item of information would come to serve as fundamental to the conviction on the part of the military officers of the PMI that the president, since August 8—in other words, three days before the attack—already knew that the head of his personal guard was behind the assassination, for surely Benjamim would have told his brother of Gregório’s confession.)