Nowhere People

by Paulo Scott

  ‘Is it true you’ve done a deal with a toy company to produce a doll wearing a mask just like yours?’

  ‘ …’

  ‘And that the toy mask will be removable?’

  ‘That’s absurd. It’s never going to happen.’

  ‘But if it did, do you think any child would want it?’

  ‘Children aren’t usually scared of things that are real.’

  ‘Are you real?’

  ‘ …’

  ‘Is it true that people have been mobilising and encouraging donations to your cause right across Brazil?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about this hearing tomorrow?’

  ‘Justice wears a blindfold … A blindfold? I won’t be going that far myself.’

  Then, deliberately disturbing the rhythm of the interview (to tell the truth, this was the only reason he agreed to do it), Donato says he would like to read out two very short stories written by his mother, a young Guarani Indian called Maína who lived on the side of the BR-116 and who, like hundreds of other Indians all over Brazil, precisely because she was unable to see any sign of a possible future, committed suicide in nineteen ninety-three. After this, and as though it would be impossible to go back to answering questions, he volunteers to talk about the meaning of his chanting. He confirms that, yes, the straw and wood do hurt a little, and the interview comes to an end.

  An hour and a half later, Donato arrives home. He turns on his computer, checks the messages. Another one from Rener. She has been sending messages for more than two weeks. They always say the same thing, to add her on Skype or make a reverse-charge call to the number of the house where she’s living now. (If not today, then when?) He opens Skype, calls the number she has given him. ‘Who is it?’ the voice asks in French. It isn’t a good connection, there’s some hissing, but all the same he’s so pleased to hear her. ‘Curumim here, Brown Sugar.’ She laughs. (How he has missed that laugh.) ‘You told me to forget you, but I couldn’t do it,’ she says. ‘I can see that.’ ‘I’m never going to forget you, my shy little thing … ’ He says nothing. ‘I wanted to give you a bit of news, and ask you for something,’ she says. ‘Just like that, after all this time? Ok. You’ve managed to scare me, Rener,’ he stutters a little but it’s barely noticeable. ‘I’m moving in with a guy … ’ she says. ‘He’s French?’ She takes a moment to answer. ‘Yes.’ He leans on the table with the computer on it. ‘And is he cool?’ he asks. ‘I think he’s really cool.’ He can tell she is happy. ‘You’re still very young for this, Sugar … You sure?’ ‘I love him, that’s all … I got tired of changing boyfriends every week … and, another thing, I’m pregnant … ’ This did shake him. ‘You’re going to be a mother? Really?’ She lets out a shriek (one of those genuine Rener shrieks). ‘I’m seven months gone already. So isn’t that Proper News?’ she asks. ‘I … yes, of course, it’s a huge piece of news. I’m very happy,’ he says, unnerved. ‘And now the request … drumroll … I want you to be the baby’s godfather … You know how my family’s Catholic … ’ She is preparing the ground. ‘I know … and Catholics … ’ ‘You know I’m crazy, right? And this guy, though I really do like him very very very much, well he’s a lot crazier than me … ’ Still preparing him. ‘What does he do?’ He takes on a paternal tone that makes no sense. ‘He works in the circus, he’s a clown … ’ Coincidences. ‘Now I can see our childhood games have gone too far.’ She burst out laughing, she’s jubilant. ‘Things are coming full circle, Curumim. For better or worse, there’s no way out. Accept it.’ ‘The godfather of a child, a child with two irresponsible parents?’ he says happily. ‘Right! The child of your best friend, almost the love of your life,’ she says and laughs. ‘Listen – you really love this guy?’ Silence. ‘I’d like to think so … He loves me very much, I’m sure of that.’ ‘Everyone loves you, Rener.’ ‘That time is over, Curumim, I’m no longer that revolutionary … Listen. I’ve already spoken to my parents, they’re going to pay for the flight … and you’ll stay here at mine.’ He says nothing. ‘I need to think. It’s quite a hard decision … ’ ‘I know you’ll accept … Paris will be good for you … I’ll leave it to you to choose a name for her,’ she says. ‘Her?’ and he can’t contain himself. And Rener starts telling him everything that has happened to her in these past years and makes him laugh a lot. The Skype credits are running out. He will let them run out and then he will call her back.

  When he came back to Brazil in nineteen ninety-five with only the clothes on his back and a law trainee’s rucksack, the first thing Paulo did on walking out of the arrivals area at Salgado Filho Airport was get into a taxi and ask the driver to take him to Barra do Ribeiro (he didn’t stop to think about whether the money he had changed in São Paulo would be enough for the whole fare). They passed the last of the three bridges that come after the Casa das Cucas, asked the driver to clock exactly six kilometres, and stopped nowhere at all. There was no more encampment. He made the driver pull over. He walked between the low shrubs, a sign that there once used to be a clearing here, a little open space, came to the foundations of the white house. Nothing left. He returned to the taxi, asked them to drive on a bit further south. He managed to find another three encampments; he stopped at all three and asked after the Indian women. They told him that they’d moved to a village in the north of the state, and that was it. Seeing that the driver was starting to lose his temper, he asked if they could keep trying just a little longer, the driver refused, they had gone much further than they’d agreed, and Paulo threatened to stay right where they were and not pay the fare, and the taxi-driver gave him another twenty minutes. They arrived at what seemed to be the last encampment. A well-spoken Indian who was very insistent on selling his handicrafts gave him the news of Maína’s death. Paulo asked how it had happened and he said it would be best for Paulo not to know. Paulo grabbed hold of his arm hard, said the information was very important to him. The driver got out of the cab, telling Paulo to let go of the Indian. Paulo stopped short, apologised to the Indian and (in front of the Indian) thanked the taxi driver for his intervention (sometimes Paulo needs them). He looked up at that sky, the landscape that had acquired a threatening horizon. Time to return to Porto Alegre. On the way back, he couldn’t look at the road. The first days flew by. A week, a week in his parents’ house was enough for him to have his first crisis. He no longer needed the superhuman self-control that he had learned in London, in his homeland some kind of relief ought to be possible (relief that no longer existed anywhere), but no. Thinking that it will get better. Allowing himself to feel hope. This is the fatal symptom of a moment when you are no longer able to find peace. He started to medicate himself, fixed up some job or other to keep himself busy, went back to studying law to keep himself busy; he couldn’t get seriously involved with anybody. One day he started teaching at a social awareness programme in Vila Cruzeiro. It was this that kept him going. And so the years went by. Trying not to succumb once more to the confusion of thoughts, trying not to give in to panic and to the growing fragility of his emotions. He met new people, had girlfriends, watched his friends get poorer, get richer, marry, separate, people who had been alienated going into politics, people bursting with ideas getting tired of politics. There was no place to hide: his friends are the new impresarios, the judges who will soon become High Court judges, High Court judges who will soon be serving on the Supreme Court, coordinators of the most important government programmes, actors, writers, state police chiefs, heads of the Federal Police, members of the Public Ministry, academics, newspaper editors, owners of high-traffic blogs, tweeters with many followers, advertisers, diplomats. Life goes on. He enrolled in the master’s programme to keep himself busy and completed it with honours to keep himself busy, he started teaching on a law course, one of those really crappy ones in a far-flung corner of Rio Grande do Sul just to keep himself busy. Paulo saved up money and bought himself an apartment in the centre of Porto Alegre when it wasn’t yet fashionable to live in the centre
of Porto Alegre. His parents still keep up a crazy pace of trips with married friends of theirs. His sister has married a Canadian and had four children, she isn’t planning to come back to Brazil. A lot has happened in the world. He never heard from Rener again, or the Lebanese men. Two years ago, Leonardo, who is today one of the country’s District Prosecutors, invited him to be his chief of staff, Paulo did not want to accept (working with a friend, as his subordinate, is one of the hardest things), but he accepted. Today is the graduation day of the girl who is working as an intern in Leonardo’s office. The Ceremonial Hall at the state university is packed. Paulo hasn’t the patience to watch guys his age showing off long-legged twenty-year-olds with highlights in their hair, each one more Miss Brazil than the last, the keys to their imported cars, their thousand-real suits, their anabolic workout. The intern is a sweet girl but she isn’t worth the sacrifice. Paulo leaves at the beginning of the guest of honour’s speech. He leaves the building, crosses Avenida Osvaldo Aranha heading towards Independência. He’s hungry, he decides to have dinner in a restaurant in Barros Cassal, where the food is good and cheap. He sits at a table in front of the television because it’s the furthest from the table where the members of a crummy local band are sitting, yet another crummy band trying to relive a great moment in the world history of rock music, with their stereotypical clothes and a breed of dog in their name. Right in time for the news. He asks for a steak with a fried egg, listens to the story about that Indian in the mask who is going to have a hearing tomorrow afternoon at the Central Forum. Yet another dickhead doing whatever he can to draw attention to himself. He is being accused of theft, but there are many other accusations. The man gives laconic answers to a few questions and then asks if he can tell some stories by his mother, an Indian woman called Maína. Paulo gets up, walks straight over to the volume button, turns it up to maximum. The guys from the appalling band protest. He shrugs, tells them to go suck Bob Dylan’s greasy dick. The story told by the man in the mask is about an old Indian woman who spent her days by the side of the road gathering up loose pages from newspapers and magazines carried there on the wind, and Paulo begins to shake, he is shaking from his head down to his feet, and one day, the masked man continues, the old Indian woman was bitten by a lizard and before fainting from the poison that was circulating round her body she made a bonfire of the paper she had gathered and when the flames began to imitate a sacred song of return the Indian woman dressed herself in them and disappeared. Paulo turns, takes his blazer off the back of the chair and leaves the restaurant. He doesn’t even look at the guys from the band gesturing for him to go fuck himself.

  ‌

  palindromes (second part)

  Paulo steps out of the lift, turns right and sees that he has arrived on time. Lawyers, interns, curious bystanders, litigants, civil servants, security guards; apart from the journalists almost everyone is troubled by the presence of the man in the mask. Paulo approaches. ‘You’re a very brave lad,’ he says. Donato turns. ‘Sorry, senhor, I’m not in the mood to talk.’ Though the sound that comes out from behind the mask is muffled, it’s possible to hear that he is apprehensive (over the years Paulo has become good at detecting apprehensiveness). ‘And your followers?’ Paulo asks. ‘I’m on my own,’ says Donato. ‘Don’t you get cramps standing in the same position for such a long time?’ He ventures this other question. ‘Sorry if I wasn’t clear, senhor, I don’t want to talk,’ he replies. ‘Wouldn’t it have been better to call for a lawyer to go with you? I can offer my services for free. It would be a pleasure to go into that hall with you,’ and he gestures towards the hearing room. ‘Let the world adapt,’ Donato says and moves away from him. ‘They’re going to make you take off that mask … ’ Paulo follows him. ‘I’ve stuck my forehead to the mask with superglue.’ Donato does not stop walking. ‘I knew Maína, your mother … ’ Paulo says. Donato stops. ‘What’s your name?’ ‘Paulo.’ ‘I was planning to hang myself tomorrow, Paulo.’ And Catarina runs over. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so late, aren’t I?’ and hugs Donato. ‘Catarina, I’d like to introduce you to my biological father: Paulo.’ Paulo moves away and, pathetic as always, seeks support from the wall. ‘Are you kidding?’ she says. ‘Can you give us a moment, Catarina?’ Paulo is looking down at the floor as if the floor might suddenly disappear. Catarina leaves. And Donato, understanding what it is to be two dead men (in Maína’s final breath), wants to hear a little more of the voice that till this moment he has only heard in the hissing of the recording that dribbled out of one of the audio cassettes that Luisa kept.

  ‌

  For Maína

  ‌

  And for Donato

  ‌

  Rener

  I got up at five in the morning, turned off my computer, went into the living room, picked up the mask that was still on the floor, tore off the leather straps, leaving just the wood, I sawed it in half. I looked out the window, it was still raining. After so many years, it was still raining. Sometimes, in secret, I would drive to Pelotas trying randomly to find Angélica and return her exercise book. I would order a coffee at Aquários and then I’d return to Porto Alegre. Luisa never knew about my return trips to Pelotas. Luisa doesn’t know I used her in the story. She doesn’t know about the times I stopped the car by the roadside and made a huge mental effort to get time to turn back. Luisa is going to hate the way I decided to depict her, she’ll hate where I’ve put her. Luisa has been the only important person in my life these past few years, but I can tell how tired she is. They say it’s normal to be demanding and take advantage of those we like most. It was you, Luisa, who suggested I write this story, after all. Perhaps I’ll replace your name with another, with Carla Cecília, perhaps. I don’t know. I keep wondering what people who know me are going to say. Will it give my political enemies new arguments to use? Is it a completely ridiculous idea that – when I drove back those few kilometres, unable to go very fast because of the storm – I found the Indian girl dead? Would that revelation be too absurd? Now here comes the difficult part of this whole epic play, Luisa. Nobody knows that I tried to revive her, nobody reported that her body rolled over, and she was lying face up on the ground, and her pregnancy was visible. There was no sign of life. I touched her – understand? I touched her and I didn’t have the courage to put her in the Beetle. I will never be able to save the country or the world, Luisa, writing plays doesn’t have that sort of power. I know it’s not wise, the idea of seeing a life within the dream of a dead person. I’m sorry, Luisa. But I think that’s what it’s like when you can’t see a way out: nothing is apart, life is what it is, engagement, defeated generations, and we get used to the pain, the pain that will, finally, do the rest.

  author’s

  acknowledgments

  Besides the advice and invaluable friendship of Isa Pessoa, I am immensely grateful for the partial readings undertaken by Anna Dantes, Antônio Xerxenesky, Beto Brant, Camila Dalbem, Daniel Galera, Fernanda D’Umbra, Maína Mello and Olavo Amaral, and for the extremely pertinent suggestions they made. Likewise the reading of two thirds of the second version out loud (so that I could get a sense of the way it sounded) by the actress Glauce Guima. In addition: the bibliographic references furnished by Ana Elisa de Castro Freitas, Alberto Mussa and Marta Machado, and the advice of Gilson Vargas, Joca Reiners Terron, Ronaldo Bressane and Simone Campos. Finally, to Marcelo Ferroni and André Marinho and their respective editorial teams, as well as to the staff of Petrobras and the Ministry of Culture.

  There were two days, when I was still living in the Jardim Botânico neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro, when I read the first version of the novel to Marlene Iara Rocha Scott and Elói Rodrigues Scott, ever-present parents; besides the fun of it, there were little suggestions I did not follow, valuable though these suggestions were.

  The titles of the first two chapters and the fourth were taken, with the poet’s permission, from Fragma (Expressão Gráfica e Editora Ltd. – Fortaleza, 2007) by Cândido Rolim – my way o
f paying tribute to this remarkable writer.

  Part of the interview given by Catarina to the reporter in the final chapter was adapted, with permission, from the interview I carried out with Thais Petzhold, who with Laura Leiner and Fernanda Chemale ran the Projeto Transeuntes (the Travellers’ Project).

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