The Street Angel

by Robert Gollagher

  Bob Richards stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist, and walked out to his living room, leaving wet footprints on the wooden floor. He shook water out of his ear and picked up the phone. At that moment a huge truck roared by, four storeys below. Goddamned noise, he thought. The noise never stopped, twenty-four hours a day. Car engines, trucks, music from the local pub, people talking, the television upstairs, and most of all, automobile horns. The damn Brazilians couldn’t drive fifty yards without tooting their horns. “Bob Richards,” he said at last.

  “Mr Richards. Um, it’s Susan Harris-Smythe.”

  Richards shook some more water out of his ear. “Who?”

  “Susan Harris-Smythe, from the orphanage.”

  “Oh. Hello.”

  “Look, Mr Richards, I’m calling because ...”

  “Don’t tell me you found the kid.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “The kid who stole my wallet. Junio.”

  “Oh, of course. No. We still haven’t seen him.”

  “Right.” Richards thought that would have been too good to be true.

  “No, you see, I’m calling because it’s Friday, and ...”

  “Yes?”

  “And I thought you probably wouldn’t be working tomorrow.”

  “I pretty much work when I like, Susan. Depends on the client.”

  “Right. So I thought perhaps I could ask you if you wanted to come to the orphanage tomorrow and, um ...”

  “Do some charity work? Look, Susan, you people at the orphanage do great work, and all that, but, uh, the IRS still want a million dollars out of me. Now is not the time for charity. You know what I mean?”

  “No, no. I was going to ask you to lunch.”

  “Lunch? At the orphanage?”

  “I know,” Susan replied nervously. “It’s not the best place. Do you know somewhere better? It’s just you’re the only person I know in Recife who speaks English, and I’m going crazy speaking Portuguese all the time.”

  “You’re asking me out to lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, there’s a seafood cafe I know, on the beach at Boa Viagem.”

  “That sounds fine.”

  Richards couldn’t help feeling deeply suspicious. “You like seafood?”

  “I love it, Mr Richards.”

  “Look, Susan, could you do me a favour?”

  “What is it?”

  “If we’re gonna have lunch, could you call me Bob?”

  “Bob. Right, of course.”

  “Okay, Susan, I’ll come to the orphanage at twelve. That okay?”

  “Great. See you then.”

  Richards put down the phone. That was a goddamn weird phone call, he thought. For a long moment he looked out of his large, open windows at the apartment building opposite his own. It was stained with tropical mould, a black haze spreading over every concrete surface. He could see families huddled around their TV sets in every window. Then he looked down. On the narrow street below, some stupid guy was bending the aerials of parked cars, just for the hell of it.

  Richards leaned out of his window and yelled.

  “Hey, you! What do you think you’re doing? Get lost!”

  The man pulled a revolver out of his shorts and waved it defiantly.

  Richards stepped quickly back from the window and let the man get on with it. No point confronting a nutcase, he thought. It usually ended in someone getting killed. He switched off the light, just to be safe.

  Why the hell had Susan called him, anyway? he wondered. As far as he could tell at the orphanage, she hated him on sight. It was typical of his whole life since coming to Brazil. There was always something weird happening. Nothing really surprised him any more. Nothing.

  Fifteen hours later, Richards was looking at Susan’s pale blue eyes. Her face was delicate, almost innocent, with the milky complexion that came from a life under the cloudy skies of England. But there were lines of worry around her eyes. Her brown hair was cut in an attractive bob, the kind of sensible hairstyle you would expect from someone working with children. Bob Richards wished like hell he didn’t find her so attractive. Even in a cotton shirt and slacks, she looked great. This bothered Richards greatly, because she was so damned annoying.

  She ate her fish as if she were sitting in some fancy hotel in Paris, slicing away delicately at the succulent flesh, chewing it appreciatively, then taking little sips of her wine. Richards had to slow down just so he didn’t end up sitting there with an empty plate for a half-hour while she finished. She had actually closed her eyes for a few seconds before they ate, to thank God for the meal. He saw her muttering a prayer under her breath. Worst of all, she had removed her wedding ring before he had picked her up from the orphanage. Richards was a well-practised observer of women, ever since his ex-wife had ripped his heart out and chewed it into a million pieces. He had a way of separating women into those who were no trouble, and those who were trouble. Susan Harris-Smythe, with her snooty name, ridiculous accent, and quaint habits, was definitely trouble. She was married, for a start. Richards had never gotten involved with a married woman, and he wasn’t about to start now. That would definitely be trouble.

  “I often go walking around the slums,” she said, as if she were saying that she often played a nice game of croquet on Sunday afternoons.

  “You what?”

  “I take my video camera. It’s so different to anything I’ve seen before. And the people are so interesting.”

  “Interesting?”

  “They’re good people. They have so little, but they help each other.”

  “Susan, most people wouldn’t walk around downtown with a camera. Doing it in the slums is crazy.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do I mean? Do you wear a watch?”

  Susan thrust her milky wrist forward so Richards could see the tiny, elegant gold wristwatch she wore. “Of course.”

  “Do you take it off when you go walking?”

  “No. Should I?”

  “What about your wallet? Do you carry it with you, with all your credit cards, your English pounds, photographs of your husband?”

  “I don’t carry photographs of Adrian,” Susan said seriously.

  “Right. But do you take your wallet with you, to the slums?”

  “Of course. I might need to buy something.”

  Richards couldn’t believe it. He shook his head. “Susan, you’re going to get yourself killed. You can’t carry that kind of stuff around on the streets. You may as well wear a sign saying, ‘Hooray! I’m rich and you’re poor!’ ”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, it’s an insult. It’s telling everyone that you’re a gringo, too dumb to know not to carry valuables in public, you’re just begging to get robbed. You’ll be telling me you wear jewellery next.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “I’ve never had any trouble yet, Bob.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “Six weeks.”

  “I rest my case.”

  “The locals know me, they even call me Susinha. I’m safe.”

  “They call you Little Susan? That’s great, you’re probably safe from them ... but not from the people you don’t see, the people watching you quietly from a distance, just figuring when to strike.”

  “I’m not going to be forced off the street by hoodlums.”

  Richards shook his head again. “At least promise me one thing.”

  “What?”

  “You won’t speak English in the slums. Always Portuguese, okay?”

  “Why?”

  “They don’t like dumb tourists, especially not Americans.”

  “But I’m English.”

  “They don’t know that, Susan.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “The guy on the street corner with the gun in his pants. The kids with knives. The mafia. The ordinary crims. Even the military police.” />
  “Oh, come on. You’re exaggerating.”

  “Think whatever you like. Just don’t wear a watch, don’t take the camera, use a spare wallet, don’t speak English, and preferably don’t go alone. Then you’ll live to a ripe old age and I won’t have to come rescue you.”

  Susan stopped chewing on her fish. She swallowed it. “Rescue me?”

  Richards ignored the question. “Susan, what are you doing in Brazil?”

  Susan looked down for a moment. “Running, I suppose.”

  “From what? From your husband?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Well, it’s a nice place to run to.” Richards looked out of the open front of the cafe to the beach. It was a stunning sunny day. Hundreds of people were swimming and enjoying the everyday good weather.

  “A bit too hot, sometimes.”

  “Sometimes.”

  “What about you, Bob? What are you doing in Brazil?”

  “Running, I suppose.” Richards was mocking her accent.

  “No, really. I mean it. What are you doing here?”

  Richards slowly drank his beer, then looked at her. “I’m running.”

  For his honesty, Susan suddenly liked him very much.

  The following Wednesday afternoon, they met for tea at the orphanage. Richards immediately suggested they go for a walk on the beach instead. “I don’t really like kids,” he said. “Can’t we get away from this racket?”

  “You don’t like kids?”

  “Don’t get me wrong. Kids are okay. They’re okay for other people. But they’re not ...” Richards struggled to find the words, then lifted up the ridiculously dainty teacup Susan had given him, “... my cup of tea.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of bad parents, back home, people busy with their careers, people who are great on the courtroom floor or on the exchange or on the road, but lousy with kids. And I’ve seen the kind of kids they raise.”

  “You mightn’t be like that if you had kids, Bob.”

  “I don’t relate to kids. Maybe I’m just too screwed up. It’s a full-time job just taking care of myself. I wouldn’t wish me on a child. Anyway, I’m not sure I’d want to bring a child into this crazy world. What about you, Susan?”

  “I love kids. I always have.”

  “Then why didn’t you ... and your husband ... have any?”

  “I didn’t want to bring a child into that kind of family.”

  Richards decided to let this alone. “Let’s go to the beach.”

  After they parked the car, they gave a bored-looking teenager a few cruzeiros to watch it for them and set off on a long walk. Beach vendors with carts were selling pineapples, coconuts, beer, and ice creams. An endless column of high-rise apartments bordered the ocean. The sand on their feet was almost white, a faint light brown. The sun was fierce, but the azure sea was calm and beautiful.

  “Have you noticed,” said Richards, “that the beach here is like the national religion? And the female form, in the thong bikini, it’s almost worshipped. Have you ever noticed that?”

  “I suppose I have, to be honest. Is that what brought you to Brazil?”

  “I told you, I was running. But it is a sexy country.”

  “For the men, maybe.”

  “Maybe. But don’t believe anything you’ve read about machismo.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who’s in charge at home, you or your husband?”

  “I don’t know,” Susan lied.

  “Come on, Susan. I’ll bet old Adrian tells you what to do. I’ll bet you’re the dutiful wife, smiling for the photographers at press conferences and cooking his supper for him every night.”

  Susan was annoyed. At the same time she was amazed he knew her so easily he read her like an open book. “All right. Maybe you’re right.”

  “Well, that’s more machismo than Brazil.”

  Susan laughed. “Adrian is no macho man, believe me.”

  “Well, more chauvinistic, then.”

  “I expect so.”

  “Not in Brazil. It’s the opposite of whatever you might have heard. Down here, it’s the women who run everything. Oh sure, the men run the politics and the business world and the army, but that’s not where the real power is, not the power that really counts.”

  “Tell that to a women’s liberationist.”

  “No. Really, I mean it. The most important thing in Brazil is the extended family. The family is everything, it’s the whole box and dice. Without family connections, you’re nobody. And who runs the families? The women. Behind closed doors the women call the shots, the wives, the mothers. I’ve seen powerful men in public, real tigers, but you meet them at home and they’re well-trained, harmless pussycats. They have to be. It’s the power structure. Women here know their power. They use it.”

  “Does this explain why you haven’t married one of the locals, Bob?”

  “Marriage? Me? No. When it comes to marriage, no matter who’s in charge, somebody’s always screwing up the other person’s life. It’s too much like a bad business deal. Take my ex-wife. She ran out the door as soon as my money dried up. Transaction over. No, me and marriage don’t mix.”

  “Not everyone sees marriage that way. You might find someone who loved you. Don’t you think that’s possible?”

  “Love and marriage are two different things.”

  Susan nodded. She stopped walking and stared out over the sea. “Perhaps that’s true.”

  Richards took a long look at her. “We’d better start back.”

  Chapter 6

  Bob Richards’ face was deeply tanned. He loved the beach and the sun. His thick hair was dark, with a slight wave to it. His eyes were something between blue and grey, and his build was tallish but stocky. He was naturally a fairly strong man, yet he had beautiful hands, Susan thought, as if he should have played a musical instrument. She guessed it was because he had worked all his life at a desk, or making deals with clients. They were not the hands of a farmer or a labourer. His hands fascinated her.

  Richards had taken her to the steakhouse. It was a prestigious venue. The Brazilians liked their red meat, and their cattle ranches were among the best in the world. The wealthy would dress up and come to the high-class steakhouse more like they were going to the theatre than chowing down on beefsteaks and potatoes. It was different to the States. Richards wore a dark suit and Susan had put on a white summer dress. He had never seen her in a dress before. She looked even more attractive to him.

  “Why do you do so much charity work?” Richards asked.

  “To help people. And guilt, I suppose.”

  “What could you possibly have to be guilty about? You’re a good churchgoing citizen, married to an upstanding parliamentarian, you drink tea, hardly touch alcohol, and say grace before you eat. Come on, Susan.”

  “It’s not enough. I don’t know. I just feel I should be doing more to help those less privileged than myself.”

  Richards chewed his steak. “This is good.”

  “What, charity?”

  “No, the sirloin.”

  “What’s wrong with doing charity work?”

  “Nothing. But you do so much, why is it never enough?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe ... maybe I’m looking for something.”

  “Maybe you’re trying not to think about your life too much.”

  Susan looked away. “Probably. Maybe I’m just living a lie. That’s what I think, sometimes. The politician’s wife, you know. Squeaky clean.”

  Richards shook his head. “No, you are squeaky clean. I’ve never met anyone more squeaky clean than you. Your husband chose well.”

  “A politician can’t afford to be married to a woman who might do anything scandalous, is that what you’re saying, Bob?” Susan was annoyed.

  “You said it, Sue. Not me.”

  Susan reached across the table and patted him on the hand. “Sorry.”

  “Why do you stay with him?”

&nb
sp; “I don’t know. Duty, I suppose. Good old-fashioned English duty. We English like to be proper, you know. Adrian’s got an important job. I support him in it, even if I don’t always agree with his politics.”

  “A Democrat married to a Republican husband, huh?”

  “You might say that, but you forget we still have a Queen. A prime minister. The House of Lords. Tradition. We do the right thing.”

  “The right thing?”

  “We don’t do anything too improper. I try to stand by Adrian and the days go by. We go to all the right parties and the opera and for weekends at the estate. It’s all very civilised.”

  “Cucumber sandwiches and tea on the lawn?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “But you’re unhappy, aren’t you?”

  “Unhappy? How could I be unhappy married to multi-millionaire Adrian Harris-Smythe? He’s the perfect catch,” Susan said sarcastically.

  “Like I said, you’re unhappy.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, why don’t you leave him? You don’t have any kids. It’s just you and him. It’s not the 1940s, Susan. It’s the nineties. Just leave him.”

  “It’s not that simple, Bob.”

  “Oh,” said Richards dryly, “I get it. It’s the money. That’s why he was the perfect catch, isn’t it? Never have to worry about money again. Marry the landed gentry and live the good life.”

  “You just say the first thing that comes into your head, Bob, don’t you?”

  “Well, is it true?”

  Susan let her annoyance subside. “Yes.”

  “That’s why my ex-wife married me. But the money can run out.”

  “I’m not staying with him because of the money.”

  “For the sex? Then he’s an Adonis in the bedroom, right?”

  At this, Susan laughed out loud. “Adrian? You must be joking.”

  “So what’s the point?”

  “You wouldn’t understand. You’d think I was stupid.”

  “Try me.”

  “Because I gave a vow. Because I got up in church, before God and my family and friends, and I gave a vow to stay with him in sickness and in health till death do us part. Because that matters.”