Hotel Brasil

by Frei Betto

  Del Bosco noticed the way Marcelo was smiling without opening his lips. This threw him off his stride for a moment. He turned to gaze upon the mob of reporters who stood transfixed, holding their breath waiting for the verdict, for the name they could pounce on like a pack of wolves.

  “After a thorough investigation, which left no stone unturned and yielded a huge body of evidence, Jorge Maldonado, the hotel caretaker, revised his initial statement and admitted that Seu Marçal had made an unwanted pass at him.”

  Del Bosco stuck his chest out and gave his arms a stretch as he opened the file before him.

  “I will now read the accused’s statement: ‘One night, after finishing cleaning the kitchen, I felt someone tug at my ponytail. I turned around and saw Seu Marçal. “What is it, velho?” I asked angrily. He started with this silly talk, saying my ponytail was sexy, and other things I didn’t want to hear. It made my blood boil. I grabbed a kitchen knife from the draining board, held him by the neck and led him to my room. Overcome with hatred, I stuck the knife into him, then cut off his head. I even tore out his eyeballs so that he’d learn, in the depths of whatever godforsaken hell he was in, never to look at a man as if he were a woman.’”

  Del Bosco put the papers back down on the table and leaned back in his chair.

  “Questions?”

  The reporters rushed up to the table. They wanted to know when the criminal would be presented to the press. The detective explained that parallel inquiries and mental-health examinations were ongoing and that Jorge Maldonado would be kept away from the cameras until all police investigations had drawn to a close.

  Marcelo remained in his seat, staring hard at the smoke that rose from the tip of his cigarette. Del Bosco looked over at him. It made him uncomfortable to see the journalist so apparently indifferent to the outcome of the case.

  The room gradually emptied, until only a few technicians were left, gathering up wires and equipment. Del Bosco made his way down the aisle that cut through the auditorium’s seating. He paused when he got to the end of the row where Marcelo was still sitting, absorbed in his notes.

  “So, Marcelo, satisfied?” said the detective.

  The journalist looked up from his notepad. He spoke with a sigh, making no attempt to disguise the sarcasm in his voice.

  “I’m surprised that an intelligent and well-read man such as yourself, Olinto, would resort to the caretaker for want of a butler.”

  The detective went red and hurried away.

  A MATTER OF METHOD

  “So, Jorge, who killed Seu Marçal?” asked Del Bosco.

  The detective had called the hotel caretaker in again. Media pressure was mounting. The police simply had to close the case.

  “I’ve already told senhor. I know nada.”

  Two thickset men entered the room and stood behind the suspect. Jorge felt his stomach turn, his strength drain out of him. His shoulders went rigid, his head filled with throbbing pain and his face waxed over.

  The detective furrowed his brow and quickly stood up, letting his seat fall crashing down behind him. He walked restlessly from one side of the room to the other.

  “Jorge, I’ve had it up to here with this. We’ve got concrete evidence that you killed Seu Marçal. We’ve ways to make a person talk, you know!”

  The caretaker fell to his knees, terrified. He held out his arms, the palms of his hands glued together, and looked up imploringly at Del Bosco.

  “Senhor, I swear, on tudo quanto é santo, I didn’t kill Seu Marçal. I’m innocent. I know nada!”

  Del Bosco looked over at the two men.

  “Take him away.”

  That was at two o’clock in the afternoon.

  By eight o’clock that night, Jorge Maldonado had been dragged through the seven seas, thrown over seven waterfalls, made to swallow the contents of seven latrines, subjected to seventy-seven electric shocks and felt the seven thousand substances that nourish the body pour out of his anus and mouth. He was then strapped to a seven-hundred-ton locomotive destined to travel through every pain known to man and pass through tunnels of new and unknown horrors. He decided to pull the emergency chord before he reached the final destination.

  He signed all the papers and fell immediately into a deep sleep.

  III

  CROSSED WIRES

  1The Escape

  Cândido got an urgent phone call from the Casa do Menor on Sunday night: juvenile delinquents had escaped en masse from the João Luís Alves and Stela Maris reform schools on Ilha do Governador. Cândido jumped on his motorbike and headed straight over.

  It was a clear night, the sky thick with stars. The Linha Vermelha expressway was jammed on one side as people returned to the city after a weekend away.

  Coloured lights came into view. Estrada dos Canários had been blocked off with police cars, and flashes of blue and red bounced intermittently off the tarmac.

  Polícia Militar motorcycles cut through the clogged traffic with their sirens blaring, radio patrol cars mounted pavements and everywhere people rushed around, trying to figure out what was going on.

  Cândido went over to where a group of bystanders had formed. They were pressed up against a police barrier, beyond which only authorized personnel went. Those who had gathered informed him that around a hundred boys and girls had escaped from their correction facilities.

  LIGHTS OUT

  Bola asked the friend he shared the corner with to keep an eye on his shoeshine box. His stomach was rumbling and his head was melting under the fierce morning sun. The whites of his eyes glowed red.

  He joined the human ant trail moving through Nilópolis town centre, then ducked into a dark corner. He licked the end of his thumb and counted the money: six bucks. Three more and his mum would be happy. She’d stuff the takings into the left cup of her bra and light a candle to Judas Tadeu. Then, as soon as night fell, she’d blow it all on cachaça.

  The poor thing, she’d suffered so much! Graças a Deus, that monster had finally taken off and left them, thought Bola with relief. His mother had no choice but to turn the odd trick: she couldn’t go out to work as there was no one else to look after Chico, Bola’s older brother. Chico was now ten, but he hadn’t walked since he was six.

  The day Chico was to go and get his vaccine, their father beat their mother for putting the radio on. It wasn’t because of the music – that he could stand – but rather the constant buzz and jabber – news stories he didn’t understand. It was a whirring that seemed to pluck the termites out of the walls of their barraco and place them inside his head, where they gnawed at his brain, burrowed holes in his thoughts and nagged at his nerves.

  Their father lost control and Chico lost his chance to go and get vaccinated. After that, the illness stunted the growth in his legs. He lay in bed all day, dreaming of owning a proper wheelchair and being able to go out in the street. His mother had made one out of an empty crate and a pram she’d found in the rubbish, but it was ugly and uncomfortable.

  Bola stopped in front of a confeitaria and stared longingly in through the window. Cashew nuts: too expensive. But what was that next to them? Ugh! Prunes: disgusting! If I spend a couple of bucks now I’ll easily earn them back shining shoes later. But if I begged, would they give?…

  The shopkeeper watched from behind the cash register, frown on his forehead, eyebrows raised, face muscles stiff. The varicose veins in his legs were starting to hurt. He saw the boy press his chubby little face against the shop window and flatten his nose against the glass. The shopkeeper’s hairs stood on end as he imagined the boy headbutting the window or kicking it in, smashing the glass and making off with the chocolate bars.

  He signalled to the security guard out on the pavement. The guard had already clocked Bola and had him under surveillance. The guard on the opposite corner got the nod. The boy was suddenly surrounded.

  Bola was dragged through the shop, accused of being a thief. He protested, swore, screamed that it was not like that. He tried to
explain himself again amid the rubbish bins at the back of the shop, but before he got a chance his lights went out. Pain shot through his muscles, the ground turned upside down, and he was spitting petals of blood.

  A MERE CITIZEN

  The fugitives had made a hole in the wall that separated João Luís Alves, a borstal for boys, from Stela Maris, a reformatory for girls. They’d joined forces and broken out, fleeing into the Morro do Barbante favela, which was now crawling with police.

  Cândido watched two soldiers run past chasing a girl, truncheons at the ready. He leaned forward on his motorbike and tried to follow the two shapes with his eyes, but they disappeared into the skeleton of a building under construction.

  A woman’s voice shouted from a top-floor window:

  “Stop hitting those poor moleques!”

  Outraged by what he was seeing, Cândido drove forward and pulled up alongside the police vehicles.

  “Who’s in charge here?” he asked.

  “Coronel Troncoso,” the policeman answered. “Why? Is senhor police? If not, hop it.”

  Cândido walked over to a group of military police huddled around a jeep. Its aerial was taller than the trees.

  “I need to speak to Coronel Troncoso.”

  “Coronel,” bawled a policeman, “someone here to see senhor!”

  The coronel put a kepi on his head, jumped down from the jeep and walked over to meet Cândido. An officer behind him shouted orders at a group of soldiers:

  “Bring Bia back, whatever it takes!”

  The coronel came up to the rope cordon, where Cândido stood waiting nervously.

  “How can I help?” he said in a dry tone.

  “I’d like to request that senhor,” said Cândido in an unsteady voice, “tell his soldiers to stop beating up minors.”

  “And senhor is who exactly?” replied the polícia militar, annoyed.

  “Cândido Oliveira, a mere citizen.”

  Troncoso furrowed his brow, puffed out his chest and deepened his voice. He leaned in so close Cândido could smell his breath.

  “And tell me something, citizen, who’s going to recover the physical integrity of the government functionaries who’ve just been stabbed by the leaders of this mutiny? Is senhor going to do it?”

  The coronel turned and walked away, back to the jeep to coordinate the search via radio.

  THE BREAK-IN

  The car flashed its headlights as it went by. Soslaio checked the time: 3.35 a.m. The coast was clear.

  He jumped like a cat out of the tree and onto the wall. A dog howled at the moon in the next garden and Soslaio froze for a moment. He kept himself flat, face pressed against the whitewash of the wall. He took a little can out of his pocket and had another sniff of glue, then dragged himself along, grazing his arms on the rough cement. He pushed himself up until he was crouching, then made a quick calculation: force of propulsion divided by distance between wall and veranda. He leaped, decisively.

  He forced open a gap in the latticed wood with a crowbar, then reached inside and unlocked the door.

  He moved furtively, eyes eating up the darkness, guessing at outlines and trying to broaden his field of vision. He banged into a piece of furniture, touched it, felt vinyl and glass at his fingertips. A television. A big, heavy one. There was a chest beside it. He pulled at the drawers and lit a match: papers, a draughts set, cassette tapes.

  He pulled a bag out from his waistband, put a few tapes in it. He headed towards the door but collided with a pouffe. He instinctively grit his teeth, as if to repress the sound it made. He tensed his body, clenched his fists.

  He climbed the stairs. A stained-glass window refracted the light of the street lamp outside. He went into the only door that was open – the bathroom. He breathed in the smell of soap. On the side of the sink, next to the toothbrushes, was a wristwatch.

  He went back down the stairs and into the lounge, helping himself to silver candlesticks, a clock, a tape recorder and some kind of sculpture made out of acrylic. He regretted not being able to carry the sound system.

  He left the house the same way he came in.

  Once he was three blocks away, he examined the booty in the light of a closed farmácia. The watch was a Rolex. He sucked his stomach in and stuffed the watch in his pants. A car came around the corner.

  DIVVIES

  Night had recoiled into a dark shade of blue. Day woke shyly on a ruby horizon. Soslaio kept walking. The police car pulled up alongside him and ordered him to stop.

  “What you got there?” said one of the policemen.

  “Documentos!” said the other.

  They forced him into the back of the car.

  “So then, Soslaio, any good swag today?” the older policeman asked in a friendly tone.

  “Not really,” said the boy.

  “Let’s have a look,” the younger policeman said, grabbing the bag.

  “Clock, tape recorder, a plastic ballerina, candlesticks… You can keep the doll, the cassettes and the tape recorder,” the older one said. “We’ll have the rest.”

  “Tudo bem,” said Soslaio, resigned.

  The younger policeman then held Soslaio by the arms, demobilizing him, while the older man frisked him. Soslaio wriggled and tried to cross his legs.

  “What do we have here, then?”

  Soslaio looked silently at the Rolex. After dishing out a few slaps punishment, they drove him to the Delegacia da Gávea.

  RANSOM

  The owner of the house reported the crime the next morning.

  “Did they take anything of value?” asked the delegado.

  “Not much: candlesticks, my daughter’s tape recorder… What I really want to get back is my wristwatch,” said the victim. “It belonged to my grandfather. It’s a diamond-encrusted Rolex Ostra, something of a prized possession.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” said the delegado, nodding as he registered the incident.

  The next day, the victim got news that the thief, a minor, had been apprehended and was on his way to court. The man was asked to go back to the police station.

  “What about the watch?”

  “The rapaz sold it to a fence,” said the delegado.

  “Can’t you track down who bought it?”

  “Senhor, the police force can barely afford petrol for its cars, much less staff to investigate crimes,” he said.

  “I’ll pay,” said the man, seeing what the policeman was getting at. He took a chequebook out from his pocket.

  “No cheques, senhor,” counselled the delegado.

  The man came back later with cash.

  The next day, he got a call from the delegado.

  “Senhor, the fence is demanding big bucks for the Rolex.”

  “What? Why don’t you just arrest him?”

  “A thief who buys from a thief should never come to any grief,” ventured the policeman. “After all, how does senhor think we track down stolen goods and catch bandidos who break into other people’s homes?”

  “Understood,” said the interested party.

  The watch was returned to its owner and the delegado divided the ransom money among his shift team. As punishment for trying to cheat the police, Soslaio was transferred to a borstal on Ilha do Governador. Before being sent on his way, he was given a stern warning.

  “Step out of line again and you’ll be biting the dirt, catching the breeze via the holes in your body and feeding the worms.”

  KING OF THE FAVELA

  Taco got home as the first sunrays grappled with the dark of the night. His grandmother heard him trip over a bucket. She put some water on the stove to make coffee. She sensed his shadow through her cataract and sent him to go and buy bread.

  The two of them lived alone together in a tiny barraco. She would not tolerate any disobedience from him, but Taco was jumpy that morning. His nostrils were flared, his eyeballs were bulging, his body shook. He’d mugged a gringo down by the beach in Copacabana and found a wrap of pure cocaine i
n the man’s leather bumbag.

  Taco had big ambitions. He wanted to rule the favela, become the Rei da Rocinha, the Al Capone of Rio, the head of the Comando Vermelho, swap his Swiss penknife for an Israeli machine gun.

  His grandma stubbornly insisted, “The bread, Taco, go and get the bread.”

  He didn’t want any bread. He didn’t want coffee, he didn’t want orders, he didn’t want Grandma, he didn’t want anything. He just wanted to be left alone to enjoy being high and imagining the favela kneeling before him, girls fighting over him, gangs bowing to his power.

  “Cat got your tongue, malcriado?”

  He just wanted a little peace and quiet to concentrate on the dreams filling his head. He’d be king of the world.

  “Shut your trap, velha,” he snapped.

  His grandmother cursed him. She felt her way uncertainly around the wooden walls, seeking him out to clip him round the ear. He would learn to respect his elders!

  Taco reached across the stove to the cast-iron pan that contained the remains of last night’s feijão. He picked it up and held the wooden handle tight. He stood on the footstool and swung with all his might. The leftover food spattered against the walls. His grandma let out a grunt and collapsed to the floor beside the bed. Her white hair began to tinge with red.

  “I am king!” Taco shouted as he threw the pan at the shelves above the cooker, clattering it into tins and jars. An orchestra of metals and glass came tumbling noisily down. He took a slug from a bottle of Alcatrão cognac and lay down on the bed.

  He slept for several hours, next to his grandmother who lay unconscious for ever.

  DIRECT LINE

  At the appointed time, Beatriz removed the layer of mud that covered up the “telephone”, the small opening in the wall that separated the two schools. She was greeted by Bola’s bright eye peering in from the other side.