Hotel Brasil

by Frei Betto

  THE GUN

  “Tio, if I find Taco, Bola and Soslaio, can I bring ’em here?”

  “Calma, Bia, I don’t even know whether you can stay here, never mind anyone else.”

  She looked curiously at the bookshelves, at a giant photo of a naked couple on the wall, a globe on a table with curved wooden legs.

  “What’s that, tio? A doll’s house?” she asked, pointing at a bulky shape under a plastic cover.

  “It’s a printer.”

  “Oh, I nearly stole one once. I held up a video store that had a printer, but it was too heavy. I couldn’t carry it.”

  They lay down in their respective beds.

  “Tio, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure, what is it?”

  “Can I give you a kiss?” She jumped on top of him, smacking his face with her wet lips. They hugged each other tight. He felt something hard and pointy scrape against his stomach. Beatriz’s eyes were moist with tears.

  “What have you got under your clothes there?”

  The girl smiled and lifted her top.

  “My thirty-eight,” she said, showing him the chrome revolver.

  “So long as you’re staying with me,” said Cândido, “I look after this. Agreed?”

  Beatriz handed him the gun. Cândido switched off the lights and rearranged himself, trying to get comfortable, or at least less uncomfortable, on the squeaky polystyrene.

  “Obrigada for getting me out of this mess, man,” Cândido heard the girl whisper.

  “No problem, Bia,” he replied.

  “What?” she said, raising her voice and turning towards him.

  “I said you don’t have to thank me.”

  “Huh? I wasn’t talking to you.”

  Cândido propped himself up on his elbow. His eyes tried to make her out in the darkness.

  “Who were you talking to, then?”

  “God,” she said. “I have my dealings with him.”

  Cândido found it hard to get to sleep. He couldn’t stop thinking about what he was going to do about the girl.

  WANTED

  All the newspapers the next day led with the story of the breakout. Front pages carried colour photos of the guards who’d been stabbed in the escape, one of whom had failed to recover and died shortly after reaching hospital. Rumours abounded that his colleagues had sworn to avenge his death.

  According to the authorities, “the ringleader of the rebellion was a minor known as Bia”.

  Cândido showed Lassale the newspaper, attempting to explain how the girl had come to be at his office. The publisher demanded Cândido get her out of there immediately: he didn’t want any trouble with the police.

  Cândido showed Beatriz the newspaper, too. She picked it up, terrified, and then slowly read through it, the lines of text dancing in her trembling hands.

  “Now what, tio?” she asked, directing the question to herself as much as to him. “I swear I never stabbed those guys.”

  “Now we’re going to try and find another place for you, somewhere that will take care of you until the worst of this blows over.”

  After making a few enquiries, Cândido took her to the Casa do Menor at the Lixão favela in Duque de Caxias, just outside Rio. The place was run by Chico Lima, a well-built, middle-aged man with a bright smile and narrow eyes. He welcomed Beatriz enthusiastically, but suggested she take the name Maria while she was there, as a precaution.

  “Aren’t you gonna stay with me?” the girl asked Cândido.

  “Não, Bia. But I’ll be back to visit.”

  “Why don’t you adopt me? Don’t you wanna be my papai?”

  Cândido felt his heart grow heavy. He chose not to answer.

  The girl started to whimper. Cândido felt a mixture of powerlessness and cowardice. Reason and emotion competed inside him, weakening his spirit.

  “And my thirty-eight, are you gonna keep it?”

  “I promise I’ll look after it for you,” he said, as he kissed her farewell.

  Chico Lima accompanied Cândido to the door.

  “Any idea where the boys who led the escape with Bia are?” Cândido asked.

  “I know Taco was recaptured. He’s in a correctional unit in Bangu. It seems like Soslaio and Bola are still at large.” He paused, then added, “I see they finally got the guy who did the beheading at your hotel.”

  Cândido sighed.

  “Yeah, they arrested Jorge, the caretaker. He’s confessed to the crime and he’s the brother of a bandido, but he wouldn’t hurt a fly. At least that’s the impression I always had.”

  “Appearances can be deceptive,” said Chico Lima.

  “You can say that again!” Cândido replied, and went on his way.

  INTERLUDE

  “Why don’t you adopt the girl?” said Odidnac.

  Cândido looked at him, perplexed.

  “Are you serious? Imagine if I adopted every kid I helped.”

  “This one’s different, man,” Odidnac insisted. “She makes you feel all paternal.”

  CASA DO MENOR

  The Lixão favela was a human anthill, built in a disorderly fashion atop the city rubbish tip. The residents crowded into barracos among tin cans, waste paper, glass bottles, used plastic and excrement. They lived breathing in the nauseating smell of rotting rubbish, competed with vultures and rats for leftover food and gathered scrap metal and pieces of junk to sell to recycling factories.

  The Casa do Menor was a big wooden barracão in the middle of a yard shaded by goiaba trees. The building was structured in an L-shape, the wing nearest the door housing a classroom, games room, TV room and workshop, the wing at the back being home to the bedrooms: girls on one side, boys on the other. The kitchen and bathrooms were stationed where the two wings met and were the only parts of the building made of brick.

  Chico Lima ran the place out of idealism. He got nothing in return beyond the vague hope that his efforts lessened the children’s sense of abandonment. The Casa welcomed any needy child, and its “guests” rotated constantly. It was a place where minors could go to sleep, have a shower, get some food, change clothes or keep their belongings.

  The bars on the doors were fairly pointless: the Casa was open day and night and the children were free to come and go as they pleased.

  4Settling Scores

  Soslaio climbed up to the third floor of the Duque de Caxias courthouse. He headed straight for the judge’s room. He was known to the functionaries and no one batted an eyelid as he passed.

  Juiz Sílvio Truco pulled his overweight body up off the couch and waddled over to greet the skinny little runt with the sad face.

  “What news, Soslaio?” said the juiz, as he motioned for the boy to sit down.

  “Good news,” said the boy. He looked older than his eleven years.

  “News worth how much?” asked the judge, settling himself deep into the sofa again.

  “This time it’s gonna cost one hundred dollars.”

  “One hundred dollars?! You gone maluco?” Truco’s face filled with blood. “This money doesn’t come out of the public purse, you know!”

  “I don’t care where it comes from,” said Soslaio. “I just want my grana, like we agreed. I provide the service, you pay.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said Sílvio Truco, leaning forward on his belly to get closer and hear better. “What’s on the menu?”

  “The menina who stabbed the guards at the reformatory,” he replied.

  The judge pushed down on the arms of the sofa and stood up. He wheezed as fat strained at his heart.

  “You really know where she is?” he asked, pleased.

  “Have I ever played you a bad pass? Do I go in for idle talk?” said Soslaio, irritated that his competence as an informer was being questioned.

  “If it proves legit, that kind of information is worth fifty dollars,” said the juiz.

  The boy got up from his chair and made to leave the room, offended by the offer.

  “Calma,
calma,” said Sílvio Truco, his flabby hand grabbing hold of Soslaio’s arm. “I’ll put your hundred-dollar claim though with the other traders.”

  Soslaio told him Beatriz was being sheltered at the Casa do Menor and was going by the name of Maria.

  FISHING

  As soon as the boy left, the juiz called the treasurer at the Clube dos Lojistas:

  “Melo? We’ve got fresh fish this week. A bit more expensive than usual.”

  “Swimming in our waters?” asked the trader.

  “Sim, an easy catch. A river just near here.”

  “How much?”

  “Two thousand dollars,” answered the juiz, fully intending to pocket the lot himself.

  “Two thousand?!”

  “Soslaio produce.”

  “Oh, ought to be good stuff, then.”

  “Top quality,” the juiz assured him.

  “In that case, we’ll pay,” said the shopkeeper.

  CARD GAMES

  Coronel Troncoso, commander of so-called policing at the Polícia Militar, was a man consumed by ambition. He was short and impetuous. It was a rare bandido who remained alive after falling into his hands, and this had seen him rewarded with a meteoric rise through the organization’s ranks. But he still found his wage too low for the lifestyle he aspired to.

  Pinned to the wall of his office was a deputado’s political propaganda poster that proclaimed, “The only thing worth spending on bandidos is bullets.”

  Troncoso had no problem adhering to the code of the Esquadrão da Morte, a death squad that operated on the margins of the law. For every man shot down, he received double his monthly salary.

  The phone rang in his office.

  “Troncoso speaking,” he said emphatically, after being passed the phone by his daily.

  “Coronel? Melo here. How about a game of cards tonight?”

  “A quick hand?” asked the commander.

  “Very quick. The table’s set, new deck, one life and a straight flush.”

  THE TRANSFER

  At eleven o’clock that night, a metallic-grey car pulled into Praça do Pacificador, in Duque de Caxias. Coronel Troncoso was waiting in his BMW on the other side of the road. He got out and walked over to the grey car. It was occupied by three men, one of whom opened the back door as he approached.

  The coronel, dressed in plain clothes, climbed in and made himself comfortable, without greeting the others. The car drove away.

  The man sitting next to Troncoso passed him a twelve-calibre shotgun, the coronel’s favourite. The man then showed him a blown-up photograph of Beatriz.

  “Mulata scum!” said Troncoso, which prompted a conspiratorial laugh from the other man who, like the coronel, was black.

  The man sitting in the front passenger seat passed round olive-green balaclavas.

  THE KIDNAP

  “We want Bia!” yelled the driver of the car, his face now covered. His accomplices ran into the bedrooms.

  The kids awoke terrified. They plunged under bunk beds, screaming, or jumped out of windows. Chico Lima shouted “calma, calma” and tried to reason with the invaders. A rifle butt to the head sent him flying unconscious to the floor.

  Deep in sleep, Beatriz came to in the arms of a man who carried a photo of her in one hand and held her mouth shut with the other.

  Linguiça, a boy known for his bravery, ran to her aid, giving chase as her abductor dragged her along the pavement. Coronel Troncoso, covering his partner’s back, shot from inside the car. Linguiça’s body flew off the ground on impact, his back arching as the bullet ripped a hole through his chest.

  They drove off at full pelt, Beatriz held tight between her kidnapper’s legs. She tried to wrestle her mouth free, but the hand was strong and held firm. She realized she was going to die and she thought of God.

  The car sped towards a junction. A market truck weighed down with vegetables was making its way slowly across the road. The truck had its lights on, but the driver of the car didn’t see it until it was too late. There was no time to brake or swerve. The car smashed into the truck’s cabin and skidded into its side, flipping it over.

  Beatriz flew like a meteorite. When she came round, she was outside the car, covered in cabbage and lettuce. A gash in her arm burned and poured blood. She ignored the wound, picked herself up and ran. She ducked down a side street, and headed towards Avenida Brasil.

  She reduced her pace only once she felt she was clear of immediate danger. She was soaked in sweat and panting as if her chest was about to explode. She found a petrol station and ran a rag of alcohol over her arm. She washed her face with water from a window cleaner’s bucket and hitched a lift back to Rio in a florist’s camper van.

  When the doorman opened up the publisher’s the next morning, he nearly tripped over the girl asleep on the steps, filthy with blood.

  OFFICIAL NOTICE

  The newspapers the next day reported that, following a serious road accident, Coronel Troncoso, “the first black man to reach the highest rank of the Polícia Militar” had died. According to the organization’s official bulletin, “a gang of minors, fighting over drug sales points, invaded the Casa do Menor in Duque de Caxias and committed a number of atrocities, including the murder of Sérgio da Silva, better known by his nickname, Linguiça.

  “As he happened to be in the area, the Coronel felt it his duty to set off in pursuit of the assailants. The car he was in attempted to swerve around a market truck, which was travelling without its lights on across a badly lit crossroads, but the vehicle mishandled.

  “Eliardo Troncoso suffered cranial trauma and internal haemorrhaging. He passed away shortly after reaching hospital. The driver of the car, a former Polícia Militar chief, lost the sight in his right eye. Anselmo Silvério, a police informer, had his legs crushed and runs a serious risk of being paralysed. The fourth passenger, a police detective known as Emilinho, suffered minor abrasions.”

  PRECAUTIONS

  Gathered at the cemetery for the funeral, officers and soldiers fired their guns into the air and vowed to avenge the coronel’s death.

  Cândido explained the situation to Lassale, who reluctantly agreed to let Beatriz stay at the publisher’s until a better solution was found.

  “But por favor, Cândido, get this girl out of here as soon as possible,” the publisher begged.

  Too terrified to go out into the street, Beatriz made no complaint when Cândido restricted her movements to the office, kitchen and bathroom.

  5Discovered

  Confined to her hideout, Beatriz played with pieces of paper on the floor, drawing pictures, cutting them up, gluing them together. She liked watching Cândido at the computer, amazed at the images and patterns that filled the screen. She craved meals as if a chronic hunger was sucking at her veins and burning her temples. She missed life on the street, the freedom to sleep on pavements and in praças, the pilfering to get by; her gang, their sense of solidarity, sharing glue and weed, cakes and bread. If it hadn’t meant risking her life, she’d have gone back to the reformatory rather than being stuck at the publisher’s. At least there she could have met up with friends, played games and gone to classes, classes that were always cut short by impatient teachers.

  She dreamed of getting her revolver back. Every night, when she was left on her own, she rummaged around the publisher’s trying to find it. Everyone was nice to her at Hellas, except for Mônica, who was strangely standoffish.

  BOOKS

  Bramante came in, carrying a box full of books.

  “Tio Barbante,” she said, unable as she was to pronounce his name correctly, “what are all those books for?”

  “To try to understand people,” he replied. “To find out about them.”

  “People like men and women?” said Beatriz. “Why not just ask for their documentos like the police do?”

  Bramante smiled as he put the box down. He took the books out and started to arrange them into a particular order.

  “You must all be v
ery brainy!” the girl went on. “I don’t even understand myself, never mind other people.”

  The doutor found this amusing. Doubtless the girl had no idea that she’d just repeated – and with the same sense of irony – the famous doctrine inscribed at the Temple of Delphi by an anonymous Greek sage: “Know thyself.” Beatriz picked a book up, chancing upon a copy of the Kama Sutra.

  “What a funny name, tio!” she exclaimed, looking questioningly at the scientist.

  “It’s Sanskrit, a very ancient language,” he told her. “This book, which was written in India around one thousand five hundred years ago, deals with relations between the sexes.”

  Beatriz chewed gently on her bottom lip, lost in thought.

  “Do you need a book to screw?”

  “Ora, Bia, sex is like lunch or dinner. You can satisfy your hunger with a sandwich at the boteco on the corner. But it’s altogether tastier if you dine with someone you love, by candlelight, with linen tablecloths, silver cutlery, china plates and crystal wine glasses. Especially if the cook is a master of the culinary arts.”

  “What’s eating dinner got to do with sleeping with someone?” she said.

  “Both are better when certain rituals are followed. Sleeping with someone is more pleasurable when the lovers give themselves to each other free from all worry, not even worrying about reaching orgasm.”

  “Reaching what?” she said, squinting her eyes and frowning.

  “Coming, Bia.”

  “Now you’ve got me confused, tio. The thing about liking a guy, fair enough, I agree with you there. Back in the reformatory, I loved Bola. But we only screwed once, the day of the olimpíada between the boys’ and girls’ schools. In the changing rooms. We screwed to come.”

  “Maybe, Bia,” said Bramante, searching for the right words. “But just as there are many ways to cook chicken for dinner – in a soup, barbecued, ao molho pardo or canja – there are many different ways to make sexual relations more exciting. In the same way that seasoning improves food, affection increases sexual pleasure.”