São Paulo Noir

by Tony Bellotto

  The lawyer couldn’t contain himself and gave an anticipatory laugh. The topic was already circulating among the company’s employees. Paulo Sansão’s ghost had appeared to Junior and requested help for his unprotected widow, who, according to observations from beyond, was destitute here on earth. When Ambrósio Junior proposed to the old man a monthly amount for the woman, the reaction was almost a whinny: “For what? Services rendered?”

  Junior repeated that PS had presented him with that demand and that it wasn’t his place to question, only to obey. Mediumship. (He said this seriously, a bit contritely; the blue cocaine was really powerful.)

  “Do you believe in those things, Fontes?”

  The lawyer burped. He was still digesting the copious lunch we had shared at a barbecue restaurant on the Marginal. It was Saturday. “I only believe in what I can see,” he explained. “And preferably, touch.”

  Ambrósio looked at me benevolently: “Poet believes in books.”

  I confirmed this. He laughed.

  “I believe in books too,” he said. “Especially in account ledgers.”

  The old man was given to that type of humor in those days. There was a reason for it, the reason that had him walking on air but also implied an anguish and silent serving of suffering and guilt. Old Ambrósio was in love.

  “Why does your partner only appear to you? Why the exclusivity? Ask him to communicate with me too,” he told his son. “Maybe he’ll persuade me to shell out the money.”

  Junior gave up the fight, left the center of the ring, and took refuge on his side of the sofa. He was trembling, on the verge of having an attack. You could hear him gurgling.

  Dr. Fontes went up to the desk and commented to Ambrósio that the donation of a shipment of wheelchairs might be seen as a gesture of good will by the members of the Rotary.

  “How many wheelchairs?”

  “I don’t know. About fifty.”

  “Cazzo. Are there that many cripples around?”

  The lawyer mentioned the victims of muggings on the city’s public transit lines, which was a constant; whether they resisted or not, they ended up getting shot. According to him, a generation of the handicapped was being created.

  Ambrósio scratched a recently implanted tuft of hair. “What’s it gonna cost me?”

  “I’ll have to check.”

  “Do that.”

  Dr. Fontes made a notation in his electronic notebook and stored it in his pocket.

  Then, as if adjourning office hours after a productive workday, Ambrósio closed the drawer, locked it, and rose. He seemed content with the state of the world at that moment. He got his coat from the hanger and I helped him put it on. His body gave off a pleasant rustic aroma. Ambrósio Junior remained on the sofa, hunched over, seething.

  “What about tomorrow, Fontes?”

  “I saw in the paper there’s a circus in Anhembi. The Mamede Brothers. You know them?”

  His wrinkled face lit up—Ambrósio loved circuses. Unconditionally. It didn’t matter if it was some shabby suburban amusement park or a superspectacular undertaking with lights and huge computerized screens. He once even traveled to Buenos Aires just to see a Romanian circus. Dr. Fontes said he would check the availability of tickets for the next day.

  Ambrósio said goodbye, kissed the lawyer’s cheek, and was heading for the stairs when, suddenly, Junior stood up and blocked his path. The old man stopped. I was right behind him, and the possibility of tumbling down the staircase, tangled up with the two of them, immediately made me tense.

  For an instant, father and son stood head to head, almost in a clinch. They had precisely the same height and width, except that the son was a bit more flaccid. Impatience could be heard in the old man’s breathing.

  “What is it now?”

  “Why don’t you give me my part of the businesses and I’ll go away?”

  “Your part?”

  Ambrósio placed his hand on his son’s chest and pushed hard, away from the stairs. Junior lost his balance and, to avoid a more drastic fall, had to sit down again on the sofa. The rumble shook the entire mezzanine. The old man was already three steps down the stairs when he turned to apply the final blow of the round. A jab: “Who said you’re the owner of anything here? Only after I’m dead.”

  With that, Junior hit the canvas. And, groggy, fully collapsed on the sofa as Dr. Fontes and I descended the stairs after the old man, leaving the shed to face a cold late-May night. The full moon, of a color possible only thanks to pollution, floated in the Tietê.

  As had been happening in the last few weeks, before going home I had to take Ambrósio to a brand-new building with a gourmet terrace and other novelties of the upwardly mobile middle class, located on a quiet street in Sumaré. On the way, we swung by a florist to buy a bouquet of begonias.

  “How do I look, Poet?”

  I peered at him in the rearview mirror. He was resplendent. “Very good, boss. You look like a kid.”

  Ambrósio almost believed it. He suggested I come back for him later and got out of the car carrying the flowers.

  The gate began sliding open even before the old man made it to the front of the building. The doorman already knew him, knew very well who he was, to which apartment he was heading, and whom he was going to visit. Perhaps he imagined he could even guess to what type of activity the old man was going to dedicate the next few hours. But at this point I’m obliged to introduce myself into the story to affirm that the doorman was mistaken. He would never have guessed the truth.

  5

  I descend to the reception area as soon as it’s dark. In the musty lobby, the TV is showing a variety show to no one. The Sunday paper lies in disarray on the center table.

  The man raises his head in satisfaction when he sees me place note after note on the Formica counter, enough money for another week of lodging, with meals served in the room, a change of bed linens, and absolute confidentiality about the identity of guests—towels are extra. On the wall, a handwritten notice advises that the hotel does not provide receipts. A clandestine cave on a dubious street in the heart of the city—let me correct the anatomy: a street that was, in more pleasant times, the heart of the city and is today one of its many sewers.

  The man counts the money and opens a drawer, from which he takes a piece of paper. “A message for you.”

  I know it’s impossible even before I touch the note, which doesn’t stop me from unfolding the paper and reading the message from a woman called Cida to one Spencer in which she complains of his disappearance and leaves a contact number. And, perhaps to avoid any misunderstanding, adds following her name an irrefutable detail: Honey pussy.

  “It’s not for me,” I say, “I’m not lucky enough to be that Spencer.”

  The man receives the note with the visible ill will and sour expression of someone who had foreseen a tip. I don’t trust him. I’m going to hate having him around when it begins to circulate in the underworld that there’s a substantial reward for any lead about Silêncio’s and my whereabouts.

  I go out into the stuffy, noisy, electrically charged night, with insects buzzing around the lights, a racket from the bar on the corner, and people chatting in chairs on the street, something I haven’t seen in this part of the city for a long time. I take it as a good sign. I need all the luck in the world from now on. I’m leaving my den for the first time, and that’s what my enemies are waiting for.

  Signs of heavy rain. A flash of lightning illuminates the sky, a clap of thunder rolls along the sides of Anhangabaú. The smell of decomposition is in the air. There’s always something decomposing in these streets, usually something human.

  I pass by the Arapiraca Bar, moving along the opposite sidewalk, without stopping. The everyday fauna of Sunday night in a downtown bar: idlers, pimps, whores, small-time con men, people from the boardinghouses in the area, and one or two innocents. No one I know. I return, enter, and go up to the counter near the cash register. Tibério is talking to a couple and i
t takes him awhile to notice me. When he sees me, his happiness seems genuine.

  “You disappeared, huh?”

  I fabricate a fishing trip to the interior of Mato Grosso, providing a detail or two. Tibério’s smile widens until it shows the metal hooks that anchor his false teeth. I get a curious look from the skinny woman with greenish skin who’s drinking standing up, next to the counter. In general, the clientele of the Arapiraca absents itself only in case of death or arrest, never for a vacation. I buy cigarettes, a lighter, and some chocolate bars, a request from Silêncio.

  I hand Tibério the money, and he is still smiling when he says: “There was somebody here looking for you.”

  The information shouldn’t affect me. But it’s involuntary: I feel a shiver in my spine, the beginning of vertigo. Mazinho, the short-order cook from Ceará, sees me and waves his spatula in greeting. I don’t reply. Busy making change at the register, Tibério doesn’t notice my uneasiness. He approaches and leans over the counter to clarify in a confidential tone: “A woman.”

  I was expecting mention of the unpleasant types that Dr. Fontes calls upon to solve Ambrósio’s most serious problems. Men from the north who live in the Baixada Santista, real gorillas.

  Tibério raises his eyebrows and slyly underlines his report: “A really good-looking woman.”

  Good-looking. She’s not a real blonde; she dyes her hair monthly in a beauty parlor on Augusta. I know this because I took her there several times.

  “Did she leave her phone number?”

  Tibério doesn’t fall for my ploy. “She said you already have it.”

  The skinny woman finishes her drink and goes out into the street to smoke. I pick up my change and say I’m leaving. Before doing so, I still have time to make a rookie mistake, an unforced error. An instinctive reaction. It happens when Tibério asks about Silêncio.

  “I haven’t seen him in a long time,” I say.

  And I regret it instantly. Tibério doesn’t say anything, merely observing the pack of cigarettes he just sold me. When he raises his eyes to look directly at me, the smile on his face has turned sad. We’ve been friends for many years, he knows very well that I’ve never smoked. I leave the bar before one of us starts to cry. Shitty paranoia.

  When I reach Timbiras, near the area dominated by Africans, I hail a taxi. I tell the driver the address and immediately set out talking like a maniac, as if trying to make up for the mutism of days in confinement. Uncontrollable. I speak of everything: the heat, the coming rain, traffic, the football game I saw on TV that afternoon. As if in an eruption, I am draining the words accumulated inside me during the last week. I don’t give the driver a chance to comment. From time to time he glances at me in the mirror. He must think I’m high.

  The street where I live starts in a small cramped square that during the day serves as a latrine for all the dogs in the nearby buildings and at night as a poorly lit refuge for the needle people. Then it snakes its narrow way uphill until it ends at the dirty wall at the rear of a defunct textile factory. A dead end.

  I tell the driver to stop a little before the low building with green tiles on its facade and, while waiting for the taxi to turn around at the end of the street, cautiously analyze the scene. My car is still where I left it last week, with two wheels on the sidewalk and its rear against a pole. I have the key with me, but it would be unwise to use it without a careful examination of the vehicle; I read recently of a guy who was blown up when he turned his key in the ignition.

  I enter through the garage and slowly ascend the stairs to the third floor. My movement activates the security lights, and to be on the safe side, I wait till they go out before resuming my climb. In the still air of the corridor hovers a mixture of food and disinfectant. A child is crying somewhere in the building.

  I establish that the door to my apartment hasn’t been forced open; the key turns easily in the lock. A sign there was no unwanted visitor during my absence.

  This impression lasts only until I turn on the living room light.

  Immediately I see that the intruder had ample time to carry out his task. And that he was meticulous, a professional. Not a single thing is in its place, everything was searched and turned inside out.

  My books were painstakingly removed from their shelves and scattered through every room, even the bathroom, as also happened with magazines, photos, documents, and other papers. He poured the contents of the liquor bottles onto the sofa and the living room carpet. The TV is facedown on the floor. In the bedroom, he ripped open the mattress and emptied the closets, leaving the clothes piled in a corner. He removed the pictures from the walls, without damaging any of them. He urinated and defecated in the toilet but didn’t bother to flush.

  Despite the diligence with which the visitor executed his mission, I know he wasn’t looking for anything specific in my apartment. The invasion was just meant to intimidate. The time-honored tactic of keeping the enemy under constant pressure, to incite him to make a mistake. Didn’t I already say I know my gang?

  In the kitchen, more disorder and damage: the cupboards wide open, the floor covered with scattered provisions and broken glass—lots of broken glass. Not a single dish appears to have been left in one piece. Over the sink, pizza wrappings reveal the intruder’s fondness for Calabrese sausage and hide a cockroach that scampers away when it sees me, then climbs down the wall and takes refuge behind the stove. I contemplate killing it and even move the stove aside. But I lose interest in the roach when I discover the message the invader has left me. More than a message, a declaration of principles.

  The old tea can where I hide money for emergencies is open in the middle of the table. Around it, carefully arranged, the money itself—or what’s left of it, every bill rendered useless by a hole in the center, methodically burned by the flame of a lighter. As if to tell me that he found my dough but he’s not a thief.

  At this point my visit is over—there’s no more reason to stay there. I’ve already taken a big risk by entering the apartment, where someone could have been waiting, because of that money. The strategy of strangling the enemy is starting to work: soon, Silêncio and I won’t have the resources to remain in hiding. We’ll be forced to move, making things easier for them.

  I’m on my way out, with the key in the door, when I turn back, attracted by one of the photos my visitor left on the living room floor. It’s a picture in which the woman Tibério described as good-looking appears smiling at the camera. Her hair, its roots a darker color than the rest, is uncombed, her face flushed, and her shoulders bare. Although it can’t be seen in the photo, I know she is wearing nothing but earrings. I also know she is happy. We had just made love. And at the time of the photo there was not yet any poison between us.

  Rain decides to fall just as I leave the building. Warm, thick drops begin to come down sluggishly onto the ground and rattle against the metal of my car, the only one parked on the street. I touch the keys in my pocket, but I don’t even need to get very close to see that the apartment invader did a complete job: the air has been let out of all four tires.

  The rain picks up. All I can do is go down to the square and look for a taxi. A bit before the first curve, I cross the street, intending to seek the protection of the trees planted at regular intervals along the opposite sidewalk. And it is this that saves me.

  The headlights emerge from the curtain of water and the car slows to make the curve. Though the driver doesn’t see me, I have time to observe him. I can see that, despite the heat, he is wearing a brown leather jacket, an almost new jacket, coming slightly unstitched at the right underarm, but a good jacket. I know because it belongs to me.

  The car moves away, I pick up my pace. Soon I am running down the street under a summer cloudburst. I run as fast as I can, to the limit of my strength. Only my heart is faster than my legs.

  (This is an excerpt from the novel

  As If the World Were a Good Place.)

  Margot

  by Drauzio Va
rella

  República

  Early that morning Margot was happier than ever. “I should have been suspicious. Happiness like that, in my life?”

  Born in a wooden shack precariously perched over the waters of a riverbank, built by her father to shelter his wife and their five children, she had experienced the trials of poverty since early childhood, on the outskirts of Iranduba, a small town on the banks of the Rio Negro opposite the Manaus side.

  She was barely twelve when her father left Iranduba to try his luck at prospecting in Santa Isabel, on the central Rio Negro, to which thousands of Brazilians and Colombians flocked, attracted by news of abundant gold in the depths of the waters and fortunes made overnight.

  To support the family, her mother found a job as a kitchen helper on the Asa Branca, a boat that went up and down the Rio Negro, taking and bringing back merchandise, construction materials, and passengers to the riverside communities. In the dry season, when navigation was dangerous, she would spend two weeks or more on those journeys that afforded her less than the minimum wage and no worker’s benefits.

  To Margot, the oldest daughter, fell the role of heading the family and abandoning her studies. She cooked, cleaned the house, took her older siblings to school, kept an eye on the younger ones so they wouldn’t venture out onto the loose boards of the footbridge that linked the stilt houses to one another, and she still found time to wash and iron the neighbors’ clothes to supplement the household budget.

  At the end of the afternoon she would fill the bucket with water from the river for the little ones’ baths, serve supper, and set up the hammocks. She held out against fatigue until all were asleep. Then she would take her teddy bear from the shelf and lie down embracing it in the hammock beside the door.

  Leaving the house occurred only two or three times a month, to help their mother with shopping for provisions that had to last until her return from the next journey.