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

by Rubem Fonseca

  Major Fitipaldi, upon learning of Vargas’s suicide, had locked himself in the military advisers’ room, on the ground floor, and hastily written a note at the end of which he signed the name of Getúlio Vargas.

  Now, Fitipaldi, Genolino, and Fontes read the note to the journalists arriving at the palace as having come from the president.

  “I leave to the ire of my enemies the legacy of my death,” began the note, which ended by saying: “The answer from the people will come later . . .”

  Mattos left the palace. He made his way through the crowd gathered in front of the palace. He needed to get back to the precinct.

  AT THE FINAL STOP of the streetcar line at Carioca Square, the inspector caught a streetcar and went to the precinct.

  Automatically, he began signing the certificates of poverty on his desk. Rosalvo came into the office.

  “Those military guys are really stupid. That’s the crux of it. If they’d left Getúlio alone, the senile old man would’ve died in disgrace, having his hair combed in public by the Black Angel, drowned in the sea of mud. But the military backed him up against the wall, without giving him a chance to save face. They played Lacerda’s game; he’s a maniac who doesn’t know when to stop. The people had already taken the old man’s picture down from the wall, now everything’s going to start all over. The old man’s become a saint, like every politician who dies in office in this shithole of a country.”

  “Weren’t you a Lacerdist? Against Getúlio?”

  “I’ve changed sides.”

  Rosalvo began singing a song from the 1951 Carnival: “Put the old man’s picture back up, put it in the same spot, the old man’s smile makes us work.”

  “Shut up,” said the inspector.

  “The UDN is through,” said Rosalvo. “It’ll never be the government in this country. That boat has sailed.”

  “Call the jailer and the guard on duty.”

  Rosalvo and the policemen on duty, the investigator who was serving as jailer and the guard, came into the inspector’s office. Mattos ordered them go with him to the Robbery and Theft section.

  “Put your weapons on top of this table,” the inspector said.

  “I don’t understand, sir,” said Rosalvo.

  Mattos took his revolver from his belt and pointed it at Rosalvo’s head.

  “You don’t need to understand. Do it.”

  “We’re going to do what the man’s ordering,” said Rosalvo.

  The policemen placed their guns on the table. Rosalvo shook his head as if to say: “This time the guy has really gone crazy.”

  “The keys to the lockup.”

  The jailer put the ring of keys on the table.

  Mattos left, locking the door. The Robbery and Theft section had only a narrow transom that opened onto a ventilation area.

  The prisoners pressed against the wall when Mattos entered the cell. The repugnant smell of poverty, dirt, and disease strengthened even further the inspector’s resolve.

  “Everyone out.”

  The prisoners didn’t understand the inspector’s order and remained motionless inside the lockup.

  “Out!” shouted the inspector. His stomach burned.

  The prisoners went out and formed into a group at the far end of the corridor.

  Mattos called over Odorico, the cell boss. “Look, they’re going out one at a time, spaced a minute apart. You’re responsible.”

  One by one, in silence, the prisoners began leaving. They seemed like fleeing rats.

  Mattos located Pádua after several phone calls.

  “Pádua, listen carefully. I let all the prisoners out of lockup. All of them, even the convicted ones.”

  “You’ve gone crazy, Mattos! They’re going to hold an administrative and a departmental inquiry. This time they’re going to kick you off the force. Know what the outcome of this is going to be?”

  “Fuck the outcome.”

  “I’m going to have to arrest you.”

  “Don’t try it, Pádua. I’m calling you just so you can come here and take control of this shit. I locked up the people on my shift.”

  “You’re finished!”

  “I’m waiting for you.”

  “I can call headquarters and tell them to go there and collar you.”

  “You’re not going to do that.”

  “The fuck I’m not!” shouted Pádua. “You son of a bitch!”

  Mattos hung up.

  He thought then that he hadn’t had a chance to talk with Detective Celso about Francisco Albergaria. When Pádua gets here, I’m going to give him all the information about my investigations. Pádua will like arresting the killer of Paulo Gomes Aguiar and solving the mystery of the Deauville.

  However, Mattos would forget to give his colleague that information. Pádua arrived by himself. Mattos was sitting behind his desk, on it the ring of keys and the revolvers.

  The two looked at each other silently.

  “Tell them I threatened you.”

  Pádua sighed. “Everybody knows I’m not afraid of threats. And you’re not capable of using those shitty guns.”

  “Say whatever you like. Say you felt sorry for me.”

  “That’s just what I’m feeling. One of the few honest cops in this precinct, and you go and do something like that. Look, I can order Rosalvo and the other two to say the prisoners sawed through the bars and ran off. We’ll make up something like that. The country’s in the middle of a convulsion, headquarters isn’t even going to start an inquiry, everybody’s going to be replaced, they’re going to give the superintendent of police the boot. Runaway prisoners won’t matter to anyone.”

  “It matters to me. I want it to be that way.”

  Mattos placed his police ID next to the revolvers.

  “Hand this over to the proper person.”

  “What proper person? There is no proper person. Hang on to that shit until they open an inquiry and kick your ass out into the street.”

  Mattos put his wallet in his pocket and walked toward the door.

  “What are going to do now? Something else crazy?”

  “Outcome. I liked that word. Forgive me for giving you a double shift.”

  As he was leaving he heard Pádua say, “Did you know today is St. Bartholomew’s Day?”

  twenty-five

  LATE THAT NIGHT, Mattos walked amid the crowd of people forming immense lines near the Catete Palace to see the dead president; he was looking for a bar open at that hour to drink a glass of milk. But they were all closed.

  Many people were crying and shouting; one group was singing the national anthem off-key and with faulty lyrics.

  Using his police ID, Mattos entered the palace. He wanted to see the dead Getúlio again.

  The bier with Vargas’s body was placed in the room of the head of the military cabinet. Mattos stood beside the casket; from there he could see the tranquil face of the dead man. Across from the inspector, on the other side of the coffin, were the president’s children and brother. Alzira, her face puffy, held back tears.

  Mattos’s stomach ached fiercely, but he didn’t want to leave there to see if some bar had opened its doors.

  Since 5:30 of the previous afternoon—when the body had come down from the third floor to lie in state, and the people filling the salon had received him by singing the national anthem—the mourners filed endlessly past the casket; they placed small slips of paper bearing requests in the dead man’s hand, plucked the flowers to take away as remembrance, prayed. Many fainted and were carried outside. One man, his hand on the coffin, managed to make a short speech before he was escorted away: “The people will avenge Getúlio!” Apolonio Salles, the secretary of agriculture, placed a rosary between Vargas’s waxy fingers.

  At 8:30 a.m., Lutero Vargas, João Goulart, and General Caiado de Castro closed the coffin.

  Soon afterward, the bier was removed and placed on a cart, at the side entrance to the palace, on Rua Silveira Martins.

  Mattos joined the mu
ltitude that, shouting Getúlio’s name and waving white handkerchiefs, pushed the cart along Flamengo beach. By the time it arrived at the Glória gardens, the cortege had increased to thousands of people.

  Near the Calabouço, on Avenida Beira Mar, soldiers of the air force opened fire on the crowd. Hundreds fled in panic for the buildings along the avenue. Others resisted furiously, throwing whatever they could, shoes and clogs, at the soldiers who fired. Many were wounded.

  The inspector tried to remain with the bulk of the crowd that held its ground around the coffin, without dispersing, obsessively pushing the car amid the sharp crack of machine-gun fire.

  They finally arrived at Santos Dumont airport. A Cruzeiro do Sul plane was waiting on the runway. A man, lifted by two others, explained with clenched fists that the president’s family had refused the offer of a FAB plane to transport the body, and the crowd erupted with shouts of hatred, curses, roars, and howls of fury and despair.

  The coffin, accompanied by Darcy Vargas and the president’s two children, Alzira and Lutero, was lifted onto the plane. A sudden, eerie silence fell over the crowd, broken abruptly by the sound of the plane’s propellers put in motion.

  Amidst the waving of handkerchiefs, the plane slipped down the runway in the direction of the sea, took flight, and passed above the cruiser Barroso, so motionless in the water that it looked like a toy.

  Mattos remained in the middle of the compact mass of people who continued on the tarmac and in the vicinity of the airport.

  Getúlio died, he kept thinking at every moment.

  Gradually, people began coming out of the short-lived stupor that had dominated them when the plane disappeared into the sky. Now, men and women were starting to become furious, to shout and mill about chaotically, spreading into neighborhoods near the airport.

  Somebody pointed to a building on Avenida Marechal Câmara, saying it was a government office. Mosaic stones from the sidewalk were ripped up and the windows of the structure’s façade were destroyed in a matter of seconds, while another group invaded the building.

  Two squads of soldiers, one from the army and one from the navy, with fixed bayonets, attacked the protesters from different positions, tossing stun grenades and teargas bombs.

  Close to five hundred people gathered in front of the air force building on Avenida General Justo, shouting Getúlio’s name, but were quickly repulsed. Dozens of the protesters were injured.

  Mattos walked toward Avenida Rio Branco.

  A group attempting to invade the American embassy, on Avenida Presidente Wilson, was repelled by machine-gun fire from the soldiers protecting the embassy. The protesters then crossed the street, carrying their wounded, determined to ravage and burn the Standard Esso building. But they were again dispersed by a squad of army soldiers with fixed bayonets.

  In the small square in front of the Standard Esso building, now empty, there remained only Mattos and a man lying on the ground. Mattos kneeled beside the wounded man, who tried to say something but died before he could speak. The inspector looked through the man’s pockets for something that could identify him but found nothing. A corpse in the streets is the responsibility of the police, and he had not yet been expelled from the force. He needed to find a telephone and request removal of the body to the morgue. He walked along the avenue, past the Senate, which was surrounded by army troops, and stopped at the door of the São Borja Building. He thought about going up and phoning from Laura’s rendezvous. But he preferred making the call from the reception area. When he left, he saw that further ahead, at the corner of Santa Luzia and Rio Branco, the same group that had attacked the American embassy and the Standard Esso building had reassembled.

  A man had climbed a lamppost and was yelling: “We’re not going to run away, we’re not going to run away!”

  The crowd, driven by the inflammatory language, advanced in a cohesive bloc down Santa Luzia toward the American embassy. Now, besides stones, many carried clubs and iron ripped from benches in the gardens. The man who had climbed the lamppost had a revolver in his hand.

  This second assault was repelled violently by the soldiers. A machine gun opened fire on the attackers, wounding the majority of those in the forefront. The crowd pulled back, pursued by the soldiers, until they were in front of the Federal Supreme Court, on Rio Branco, where a lieutenant ordered his troops to return to the American embassy. The crowd quickly regrouped in Cinelândia and moved down Treze de Março toward Carioca Square. Those in front shouted that they were going to set fire to the O Globo newspaper.

  The paper, housed in a two-story structure over the Freitas Bastos bookstore, had just closed its gate when the first protesters arrived, running ahead of the crowd. Two of the newspaper’s vans were set on fire. “Break it down! Break it down!” screamed the people amassed at the gate of the journal. At the building’s windows a few frightened faces appeared fleetingly.

  The metal gate resisted efforts from its would-be invaders. Posters of UDN candidates, ripped from trees and lampposts, were used to build a fire at the newspaper’s door. Nearby newsstands were ravaged and the newspapers and magazines, with the exception of Última Hora, were thrown onto the blaze. The flames were beginning to ignite the building when the strident sirens of fire trucks were heard.

  Along with the firemen, three police cars arrived, but the police made no effort to stop the riot. A policeman recognized the inspector and told him buildings on Avenida Presidente Vargas were being sacked. The Tribuna da Imprensa was being stoned by an infuriated mass that filled Rua do Lavradio.

  “The people are going to start a revolution,” said the policeman.

  THE ELEVATORS in Mattos’s building weren’t working. With difficulty, he climbed the eight floors, without counting the steps. He felt very tired. “I must be having that hemorrhage.”

  As soon as he got home, he opened the refrigerator. He drank the milk he found, straight from the bottle.

  On the radio he heard the news that calm had returned to the city. As his first act upon taking office, President Café Filho had named Brigadier Eduardo Gomes as secretary of the air force. General Juarez Távora had been appointed head of the president’s military cabinet. The government had stationed twelve thousand troops, hundreds of tanks, and other military vehicles at strategic points throughout the city. The authorities affirmed that the agitation, quickly put down, had followed a leftist scheme: the communists wanted to foment a civil war and install a soviet-style dictatorship. Luiz Carlos Prestes, leader of the Brazilian Communist Party, was said to have stated that he was ready to assume command of the revolution and that a general strike of workers had been scheduled for September 2. Lieutenant Gregório had told Colonel Adyl de Oliveira of his desire to say farewell to Vargas, but his request was not granted. “The ills visited upon the president by the Black Angel, by the abuser of power, had prompted the Vargas family to refuse to permit his presence at the scene,” said the announcer. Gregório was said to have gone into an “intense emotional crisis,” and air force authorities, fearing he would make an attempt on his own life, had placed him under the permanent watch of two sentinels.

  Mattos called the Dr. Eiras Clinic. He succeeded in speaking with Dr. Arnoldo.

  “Alice is much better. I think she can be released in two days. She refuses to have any contact with her husband.”

  “Tell her that’s all right. For her to come to my house. I’ll be waiting for her.”

  Then he called Salete.

  “Listen, Salete. That woman, Alice, is sick. When she gets out of the hospital, she’s going to have to stay here for a time. I’m calling to say that I like you very much. That you’re my true girlfriend. Later we’ll handle the problem with Alice. She needs me, understand?”

  “I’ll help you take care of her. Can I come by your apartment now?”

  “Come, I miss you.”

  If I lie down, this feeling will go away, he thought.

  He left the apartment door open, so Salete could ent
er without his having to get up. He went to the bedroom and lay down. He slept.

  He awoke to Salete’s voice:

  “Mattos, are you there? What happened here? A fire?”

  “I’m in the bedroom.”

  “My god, you’re so pale,” said the girl.

  Mattos tried to get up from the bed but couldn’t. His clothes and hair were soaked with sweat.

  “Who set fire to the place?”

  “I did. But call someone to take care of it, please.”

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting my ulcer to play a trick on me right now. I called you here . . . I wanted to—But that can wait. I think I need to go to the hospital now.”

  “Are you going to have to be operated on?”

  “I think so.”

  “Are you going to die?”

  “No. Get that little package wrapped in silk paper on the night table. It’s for you. Careful opening it.”

  Salete opened the paper.

  “Good heavens! I can’t believe it. Is it what I think I’m seeing?”

  “Yes.”

  “A scab from your injury . . .”

  “I kept it all these days for you to take to that macumba woman.”

  “She’s not a macumba woman.”

  “Whatever. But first you’re going to help me get to the hospital. Here’s the address; my doctor said I should go there if I started feeling really bad. Afterwards I’ll come back here to wait for Alice. She should arrive tomorrow or the next day. Explain everything to her. Treat her well.”

  Salete sat down beside Mattos on the bed. She pressed the inspector’s head to her breast.

  “Open your eyes, my love, just a little.”

  Mattos opened his eyes.

  “You see this?” Salete showed him the paper Mattos had given her. “Look what I’m doing with the scab.”

  Salete wadded up the paper and threw it on the floor, as if throwing a stone.

  “I’ll put it in the trash later,” she said.

  In reality the paper no longer contained the scab, which Salete had placed in the compact in her purse.