Winning the Game and Other Stories

by Rubem Fonseca

  “Let’s go,” says Augusto, taking Kelly by the arm. Kelly pulls her arm away. “Don’t touch me; those beggars probably have the mange. You’ll have to take a bath before going to bed with me.”

  They walk to the used-book store behind the Carmo church, while Kelly spins her theory that beggars, in hot places like Rio, where they walk around half-naked, are even poorer; a shirtless beggar, wearing old, dirty, torn pants that show a piece of his butt is more of a beggar than a beggar in a cold place dressed in rags. She saw beggars when she went to São Paulo one winter, and they were wearing wool overcoats and caps; they had a decent look to them.

  “In cold places beggars freeze to death on the streets,” Augusto says.

  “Too bad that heat doesn’t kill them too,” Kelly says.

  Whores don’t like beggars, Augusto knows.

  “The difference between a beggar and others,” Kelly continues, “is that when he’s naked a beggar doesn’t stop looking like a beggar, and when others are naked they stop looking like what they are.”

  They arrive at the used-book shop. Kelly looks at it from the street, suspicious. The shelves inside are crammed with books. “Are there enough people in the world to read so many books?”

  Augusto wants to buy a book for Kelly, but she refuses to go into the bookstore. They go to São José Street, from there to Graça Aranha Street, Avenida Beira Mar, the Obelisk, the Public Promenade.

  “I used to work the streets here, and I’ve never been inside this place,” Kelly says.

  Augusto points out the trees to Kelly, says that they’re over two hundred years old, speaks of Master Valentim, but she’s not interested and only comes out of her boredom when Augusto, from the small bridge over the pond, at the opposite side from the entrance on Passeio Street, at the other end where the terrace with the statue of the boy, now made of bronze, when Augusto, from the small bridge spits in the water for the small fishes to eat his spittle. Kelly finds it funny and spits too, but she quickly gets bored because the fish seem to prefer Augusto’s spit.

  “I’m hungry,” Kelly says.

  “I promised to have lunch with the old man,” Augusto says.

  “Then let’s go get him.”

  They go up Senador Dantas, where Kelly also worked the streets, and come to Carioca Square. There the portable tables of the street vendors are in greater number. The main commercial streets are clogged with tables filled with merchandise, some of it contraband and some of it pseudo-contraband, famous brands crudely counterfeited in small clandestine factories. Kelly stops before one of the tables, examines everything, asks the price of the transistor radios, the battery-driven toys, the pocket calculators, the cosmetics, a set of plastic dominoes that imitate ivory, the colored pencils, the pens, the blank videotapes and cassettes, the coffee strainer, the penknives, the decks of cards, the watches and other trinkets.

  “Let’s go, the old man is waiting,” Augusto says.

  “Cheap crap,” Kelly says.

  At his walk-up, Augusto convinces the old man to comb his hair and to replace his slippers with one-piece high-lace boots with elastic on the sides and straps at the back for pulling them on, an old model but still in good condition. The old man is going out with them because Augusto promised they’d have lunch at the Timpanas, on São José, and the old man once courted an unforgettable girl who lived in a building next to the restaurant, built in the early nineteen hundreds, and which still has, intact, wrought-iron balconies, tympanums, and cymas decorated with stucco.

  The old man takes the lead with a firm step.

  “I don’t want to walk too fast. They say it causes varicose veins,” protests Kelly, who in reality wants to walk slowly to examine the street vendors’ tables.

  When they arrive in front of the Timpanas, the old man contemplates the ancient buildings lined up to the corner of Rodrigo Silva Street. “It’s all going to be torn down,” he says. “You two go on in, I’ll be along shortly; order rice and peas for me.”

  Kelly and Augusto sit at a table covered with a white tablecloth. They order a fish stew for two and rice with peas for the old man. The Timpanas is a restaurant that prepares dishes to the customer’s specifications.

  “Why don’t you hug me the way you did that dirty black guy?” Kelly asks.

  Augusto doesn’t want to argue. He gets up to look for the old man.

  The old man is looking at the buildings, quite absorbed, leaning against an iron fence that surrounds the old Buraco do Lume, which after it was closed off became a patch of grass with a few trees, where a few beggars live.

  “Your rice is ready,” Augusto says.

  “You see that balcony there, in that blue two-story building? The three windows on the second floor? It was in that window to our right that I saw her for the first time, leaning on the balcony, her elbows resting on a pillow with red embroidery.”

  “Your rice is on the table. It has to be eaten as soon as it comes from the stove.”

  Augusto takes the old man by the arm, and they go into the restaurant.

  “She was very pretty. I never again saw such a pretty girl.”

  “Eat your rice, it’s getting cold,” Augusto says.

  “She limped on one leg. That wasn’t important to me. But it was important to her.”

  “It’s always like that,” Kelly says.

  “You’re right,” the old man says.

  “Eat your rice, it’s getting cold.”

  “The women of the oldest profession possess a sinuous wisdom. You gave me momentary comfort by mentioning the inexorability of things,” the old man says.

  “Thanks,” Kelly says.

  “Eat your rice, it’s getting cold.”

  “It’s all going to be torn down,” the old man says.

  “Did it used to be better?” Augusto asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “In the old days there were fewer people and almost no automobiles.”

  “The horses, filling the streets with manure, must have been considered a curse equal to today’s cars,” Augusto says.

  “And people in the old days were less stupid,” the old man continues with a melancholy gaze, “and not in such a hurry.”

  “People in those days were more innocent,” Kelly says.

  “And more hopeful. Hope is a kind of liberation,” the old man says.

  Meanwhile, Raimundo, the pastor, called by his bishop to the world headquarters of the Church of Jesus Savior of Souls, on Avenida Suburbana, listens contritely to the words of the supreme head of his Church.

  “Each pastor is responsible for the temple in which he works. Your collection has been very small. Do you know how much Pastor Marcos, in Nova Iguaçu, collected last month? Over ten thousand dollars. Our Church needs money. Jesus needs money; he always has. Did you know that Jesus had a treasurer, Judas Iscariot?”

  Pastor Marcos, of Nova Iguaçu, was the inventor of the Offerings Envelope. The envelopes have the name of the Church of Jesus Savior of Souls printed on them, the phrase I request prayers for these people, followed by five lines for the petitioner to write the people’s names, a square with $ in large type, and the category of the offering. The SPECIAL prayers, with larger quantities, are light green; the REGULAR are brown, and in them only two prayers can be requested. Other churches copied the Envelope, which greatly annoyed the bishop.

  “The devil has been coming to my church,” Raimundo says, “and since he starting going to my church the faithful aren’t making their offerings, or even paying the tithe.”

  “Lucifer?” The bishop looks at him, a look that Raimundo would like to be one of admiration; probably the bishop has never seen the devil personally. But the bishop is inscrutable. “What disguise is he using?”

  “He wears dark glasses, he’s missing one ear, and he sits in the pews at the back, and one day, the second time he appeared at the temple, there was a yellow aura around him.” The bishop must know that the devil can take any appearanc
e he wants, like a black dog or a man in dark glasses and missing one ear.

  “Did anyone else see this yellow light?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Any special smell?”

  “No, sir.”

  The bishop meditates for some time.

  “And after he appeared, the faithful stopped tithing? You’re sure it was—”

  “Yes, it was after he showed up. The faithful say they don’t have any money, that they lost their job, or they’re sick, or they were robbed.”

  “And you believe they’re telling the truth. What about jewels? Don’t any of them have jewels? A gold wedding ring?”

  “They’re telling the truth. Can we ask for jewels?”

  “Why not? They’re for Jesus.”

  The bishop’s face is unreadable.

  “The devil hasn’t been there lately. I’ve been looking for him. I’m not afraid; he’s walking around the city and I’m going to find him,” Raimundo says.

  “And when you find him, what do you plan to do?”

  “If the bishop could enlighten me with his counsel …”

  “You have to discover for yourself, in the sacred books, what you must do. Sylvester II made a pact with the devil, to achieve the Papacy and wisdom. Whenever the devil appears, it’s always to make a pact. Lucifer appeared to you, not to me. But remember, if the devil outsmarts you, it means you’re not a good pastor.”

  “All good comes from God and all evil from the Devil,” Raimundo says.

  “Yes, yes,” the bishop says with a bored sigh.

  “But good can overcome evil.”

  “Yes,” another sigh.

  The lunch at the Timpanas continues. The old man speaks of the Ideal Cinema, on Carioca Street.

  “The Ideal was on one side on the street, the Iris Cinema on the other. The Iris is still there. Now it shows pornographic films.”

  “It may become a church,” Augusto says.

  “At the night showings the Iris’s ceiling would open and let in the evening cool. You could see the stars in the sky,” the old man says.

  “Only crazy people go to the movies to see stars,” Kelly says.

  “How did the ceiling open?” Augusto asks.

  “A very advanced engineering system for the time. Pulleys, pulleys … Rui Barbosa always used to go there, and sometimes I sat near him.”

  “You sat near him?”

  The old man notes a certain incredulity in Augusto’s voice. “What do you think? Rui Barbosa died just the other day, in 1923.”

  “My mother was born in 1950,” Kelly says. “She’s an old woman who’s falling apart.”

  “For a long time, after Rui died, and until the theater became a shoe store, his seat was separated by a velvet rope and there was a plaque saying This seat was occupied by Senator Rui Barbosa. I voted for him for president, twice, but Brazilians always elect the wrong presidents.”

  “The theater became a shoe store?”

  “If Rui were alive, he wouldn’t let them do that. The two facades, one of stone and the other of marble, and the glass marquee, a glass just like that in my skylight, are still there, but inside there’s nothing but piles of cheap shoes; it’s enough to break your heart,” says the old man.

  “Shall we go there?” Augusto suggests to Kelly.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you to see fountains, buildings falling to pieces and disgusting trees until you stop and listen to my life story. He doesn’t want to listen to the story of my life. But he listens to the story of everybody else’s life.”

  “Why don’t you want to hear the story of her life?” the old man asks.

  “Because I’ve already heard the life stories of twenty-seven whores, and they’re all the same.”

  “That’s not the way to treat a girlfriend,” the old man says.

  “She’s not my girlfriend. She’s someone I’m teaching to read and speak.”

  “If she’d put in a front tooth, she might even be pretty,” says the old man.

  “Why put in a tooth? I’m not going to be a whore anymore. I’ve given it up.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m still thinking about it.”

  On Monday, regretting having treated Kelly badly, even more so in light of the fact that she is learning to read with great rapidity, Augusto leaves his lodgings to go to Tiradentes Square to buy a semiprecious stone in the rough to give her as a gift. He has a friend, who goes by the false name Mojica, who buys and sells these stones and lives in the Hotel Rio on Silva Jardim and can give him a good price. Mojica, before establishing himself as a seller of stones, earned his living as a bagger of fat women, a specialty of lazy gigolos.

  On Uruguaiana, hundreds of street vendors, prohibited by City Hall from setting up their stalls and assisted by unemployed youths and other passersby, plunder and sack the stores. Some security guards hired by the stores shoot into the air. The noise of broken store windows and of steel doors being battered down mixes with the screams of women running through the street. Augusto turns onto Ramalho Ortigão and takes Carioca in the direction of Tiradentes Square. The weather is overcast and it’s threatening to rain. He is almost at Silva Jardim when Pastor Raimundo appears unexpectedly in front of him.

  “You disappeared,” says Pastor Raimundo, his voice tremulous.

  “I’ve been very busy. Writing a book,” Augusto says.

  “Writing a book … You’re writing a book … Can I ask about the subject?”

  “No. Sorry,” says Augusto.

  “I don’t know your name. May I ask your name?”

  “Augusto. Epifânio.”

  At that moment it starts to thunder and a heavy rain begins to fall.

  “What do you want from me? A pact?”

  “I went into your theater by chance, because of some selenium capsules.”

  “Selenium capsules,” says the pastor, paling even more. Wasn’t selenium one of the elements used by the devil? He can’t remember.

  “Good-bye,” says Augusto. Standing in the rain doesn’t bother him, but the ex-bagger of fat women is waiting for him.

  The pastor grabs Augusto by the arm, in a flight of courage. “Is it a pact? Is it a pact?” He staggers as if about to faint, opens his arms, and doesn’t fall to the ground only because Augusto holds him up. Recovering his strength, the pastor frees himself from Augusto’s arms, yelling “Let me go, let me go, this is too much.”

  Augusto disappears, entering the Hotel Rio. Raimundo shakes convulsively and falls in a faint. He lies for some time with his face in the gutter, wetted by the heavy rain, white foam coming out of the corner of his mouth, without attracting the attention of charitable souls, the police, or passersby in general. Finally, the water running in the gutter rises over his face and brings him back to consciousness; Raimundo gathers the strength to stand and walk unsteadily in search of the devil; he crosses the square, then Visconde do Rio Branco, proceeds staggeringly between the jobless musicians who meet at the corner of Avenida Passos under the marquee of the Café Capital, across from the João Caetano Theater; he passes the door of the church of Our Lady of Lampadosa, smells the odor of candles being burned inside there and crosses the street to the side where the theater is, running to avoid the automobiles; all over the city automobiles hit one another in the search for space to move in, and they run over slower or careless pedestrians. Dizzy, Raimundo leans against the base of a bronze statue of a short, fat man covered with pigeon crap, wearing a Greek skirt and Greek sandals and holding a sword, in front of the theater; beside it, a vendor selling undershorts and rulers pretends not to see his suffering. Raimundo turns left onto Alexandre Herculano, a small street with only one door, the back door of the School of Philosophy that appears never to be used, and finally enters a luncheonette on Conceição where he has a glass of guava juice and mulls over his unspeakable encounter. He has discovered the name behind which Satan is hiding, Augusto Epifânio. Augusto: magnificent, majestic; Epifânio: originat
ing in a divine manifestation. Ha! He could expect nothing from Beelzebub less than pride and mockery. And if the one who calls himself Augusto Epifânio is not the Evil One himself, he is at least a partner in his iniquity. He remembers Exodus 22:18: “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

  The thunder and lightning begins again.

  Mojica, the ex-bagger of fat women, tells Augusto that business isn’t very good; the crisis has hit him too, and he’s even thinking of going back to his old business; for reasons he can’t explain, there’s been an increase in the city in the number of middle-aged women with money wanting to marry a thin, muscular man with a big prick like him. Fat women are gullible, have good temperaments, are almost always cast aside, and they’re easy to deceive. “One a year is enough for yours truly to lead a comfortable life; and it’s a big city.”

  From Tiradentes Square, ignoring part of Benevides’s instructions, Augusto goes to Jogo da Bola Street, taking Avenida Passos to Presidente Vargas. Crossing Presidente Vargas, even at the traffic light, is always dangerous; people are constantly getting killed crossing that street, and Augusto waits for the right moment and crosses it by running between the automobiles speeding past in both directions and makes it to the other side panting but with the euphoric sensation of one who has achieved a feat; he rests for a few minutes before proceeding to his right to Andradas and from there to Júlia Lopes de Almeida Street, from which he sees Conceição Hill and quickly comes to Tenente Coronel Julião, then walks a few yards and finally finds Jogo da Bola.