by Ed Siegle
‘Happy birthday, my little cherry stone.’
‘Can I really be forty?’ she said with a sigh.
‘And more beautiful every year.’
Nelson heard six bleeps, a high-pitched whine, a heavy door closing and keys turning in locks. Torchlight fanned behind the wall. The man was panting, dragging suitcases on plastic wheels. Nelson withdrew further as a black Mercedes pulled up.
‘Perfect timing! Oh, honey!’ said the woman.
‘I love New York in June…’ crooned the man as he opened the door in the wall.
‘Oh! So do I, honey, I’m sure I do! And London in July!’
‘A foggy da-ay… in London to-wn,’ sang the man as a driver helped him dump giant cases into the boot.
‘Oh, how I’ll adore the fog!’ said the woman.
Nelson peeked around the corner. The woman was as small as a bird. The man was fat and having trouble squeezing into the back of the car. Nelson heard a final giggle and a forthright command to a driver who surely already knew the destination: ‘To the airport: the international airport.’
The car rolled away and Nelson emerged. He wanted to slap hands and chink glasses with everyone at Bar do Paulo – though upon reflection this piece of fortune might serve him better if kept secret. It could be the very break he’d been working so hard to find. He didn’t know whether to thank Cristo or Yemanjá, so he thanked them both – as was only fair – by sticking his thumb up at the distant sea and at Cristo on the hill. He saw that the sky was almost pale and thought he’d better climb over before the streets started to trickle with people. He found a piece of wood and wedged it against the wall, then, using it as a foothold, reached up and gripped a patch which was bare of glass. He hauled himself up, on to, and over – taking care not to snag his plastic bag as he let himself down.
Nelson roamed his new domain with swinging arms. There was a yard between the house and the wall, which was cluttered with ornaments, tubs and beds of flowers. There were hibiscus bushes, gloriosas with yellow-magenta petals and the cornet blooms of copo de leite. At the back was a sheer drop with a view over the city towards the bay. Spilling down the hillside to the left and spreading underneath the house was the motley red-brick slide of a favela. Smoke rose from morning fires like steam from the hide of a beast. Radio music and cries drifted over the valley. Nelson observed it as one might a bull in a corral: not without fear; not without admiration. Borrowing a view like this, looking down on his brothers and sisters, made him feel like a rich man for a minute, until his stomach burned. It was almost light. Soon car doors would be slamming and trams waking in their sheds. Maids would already be walking down from the hills or catching buses from the edges of the city to make breakfast for richer folk.
In the yard, there were a half a dozen sandstone carvings of Buddha and a four-foot-high Ganesh. Nelson promised to worship whoever was sitting on a key, but he lifted them all in vain. The ground-floor windows had bars, so, half breaking his back, Nelson dragged Ganesh until he sat under a balcony, then climbed on to his head. He pulled himself up and over a balustrade and, keeping low, examined the french door into a bedroom. Nelson tried the handle and grinned when he found the door locked: the gods weren’t dispensing miracles. But as he yanked the handle up and down he was encouraged to feel a little give, so he sat with his back braced against the balustrade and started to kick. He kicked until his feet were sore then crouched and used his shoulder, trying to time his bashes to coincide with cars, which passed more frequently as day arrived. Perceiving a definite loosening, he let himself down to the ground and hunted for something to insert and prise open the gap. He found a trowel, the tip of which he managed to worm into the hinge. He twisted and hammered and twisted until he started to hear the divine sound of splintering. With a final heave the door gave up.
Nelson stumbled on to polished floorboards and an alarm started to scream. He bolted downstairs, found the key-pad and jabbed silver keys. 13-06-60.
Silence settled on everything.
He found the fridge, which was unplugged and empty. He ducked his head under a tap and drank until he felt sick. In a cupboard he discovered a can of tomatoes and a bag of penne and said, ‘How about a little pasta arrabbiata, senhor?’ – a dish he knew from working as a waiter in an Italian place. He opened the tin and took half a mouthful of pasta and half of tomatoes, gulping the crunchy blend so fast that nausea swept it into the sink. After that, he slowed and finished off the rest.
Marble surfaces glowed in the light of dawn. Nelson wandered into a living room strewn with sofas and rugs, which beckoned him to snooze. As sunlight lit the walls, he noticed a door in the corner which looked as if it opened on to the cliff. He crept towards it, turned a knob and beheld steps down into a blazing hexagonal room with bay windows giving on to a view of half the world. In the centre he found a chair and a music stand with a book of bossa nova songs open in its arms. Against a wall, sleeping like vampires in black cases, were instruments: a violin, a mandolin – and the unmistakable shape of a guitar.
Nelson flicked the catches of the guitar case open with his thumbs and ran his fingers over red velvet. He lifted the guitar gently from its bed, sat on the chair and laid the sleeping instrument in his lap. A label inside said, ‘José Ramirez, Madrid, 1975’, and just by the feel of the wood Nelson could tell it would really sing. He tuned the strings, savouring the sweet cacophony of an instrument finding harmony, then started to strum a few chords, speeding up and slowing down, getting a feel for the instrument’s flight until he began to sing ‘Song of the Sabiá’ – which seemed an appropriate melody with which to bless this latest start. Even sad Jobim songs made Nelson happy, as if singing of solitude made him feel less lonely, but this was a more optimistic number than some. He sang partly in homage to Yemanjá – for she alone could be behind this lucky day – and partly for poor Sérgio, who needed a song sung for him if anyone did; but mainly for himself. Of course, there was nothing like an audience – and now he had a guitar he could ask for another chance at the Bar das Terezas. He’d need a shrewd excuse for his no-show the night before, but with Yemanjá unrolling a magic carpet before his footsteps there was certainly hope.
As he felt the strings fall in with his fingers’ caress, Nelson looked over the favela below and imagined he was inside an enormous eye, unblinking, surveying the world around which he had scrambled for thirty-nine years with varying colours of success. And as he gazed it struck him that there was something impudent about a favela. He knew this wasn’t a helpful thought, given that right at this moment a million favelados were sweating as a squeegee boy, a maid, a whore, a pickpocket, a petrol pump attendant, a bus driver, a street sweeper or simply standing with a dozen brothers in a prison cell meant for two. But a favela was created by hands carrying bricks and sheets of metal up towering slopes to build a home, when the rest of the city wished they wouldn’t. ‘We’re here,’ the favelas said, ‘and there’s nothing you can do.’ To make matters worse, many favelas had the cheek not to squat by the swamps on the fringes of the city nor to sprawl on scrubland heading into nowhere – but to sit on the central hills that made Rio the ‘Marvellous City’. And these hills were so beautiful that playboys in the South Zone had no choice but to look up and see the brick and concrete boxes, which weren’t going to vanish, no matter how much rich folk wished they would.
He could see black kids in bright shorts kicking a ball, a fat woman heaving bags up twisting steps. Nelson wondered how God came to develop the intricate logic by which it was fine to sit on His celestial arse instead of helping. Still, he had to admit it was better to be up here looking down than down there looking up. Besides, Nelson couldn’t help but feel a bit sorry for Him. It must be hard to be around and amongst people all the time without anyone noticing. It was bad enough at Bar do Paulo when you didn’t have a real and Zemané was nowhere to be seen. God didn’t have a Zemané; he was the Zemané – but it was better to be the mortal one, in a way, because he was right there
before your eyes, bang slap in the middle of life. Immortal, invisible, lonely as hell: that was how Nelson perceived God. He smiled and wondered at his own intricate logic – by which it seemed better to be the bossy but generous owner of a bar than creator of the universe.
The room began to heat like an oven, so he put down the guitar, fetched a glass of water and drank it while reclining on a giant cushion. Whatever life gave or took today, it was better to start from a velvet cushion than a mattress on the floor. His aunt Zila used to say that every day you didn’t make your future better was a day you made it worse – though Nelson suspected a few days doing precious little helped to lubricate the whole machine. But today was not a day to sit fat like Buddha and contemplate the beauty of it all. Nelson didn’t know much about money, but Zemané was forever talking about liquidity. That meant turning this place into some cash.
Nelson’s stomach burned and he considered more pasta and tomatoes – but how much better to stroll down to a restaurant, select a table under a fan and tear open a cheese-bread roll as a stew bubbled on a hob. He looked at a clock on the wall – a pretty thing with Roman numbers and a frame of silver rays – and thought: fifty reais. But while he might have been able to sell the clock, he liked the clock, and ever since he’d sold his watch to a frightened tourist for five dollars he’d been longing to know the time. Nelson had to admit he didn’t really like to steal. Were he to possess a greater affinity for that line of work, he’d be in a very different place in the order of the world: rich or dead, no doubt. He had the skills: with his musical fingers he could pluck a wallet like a ghost. But every time he tried to commit a crime he heard Aunt Zila saying, ‘You don’t have to tell me, I can see it in your eyes.’ In any case, Nelson owed Adolfo too many reais to approach him with anything to hawk, and Zemané would insist on knowing his source. There were other faces that might help, but Nelson wasn’t much of a negotiator. Besides, if he wanted money for lunch he’d have to carry his booty down the street in the fullness of morning light, and that would not be clever.
There must be some cash in a house like this, Nelson thought. A maid he’d once dated, who worked in an American’s apartment, used to buy Nelson clothes with the change the man would leave in an ashtray by his bed. ‘Go ahead, take it,’ the man would say. She had sometimes done so but kept a note of how much, in case he changed his mind and wanted it back. Two friends of hers had lost their jobs for stealing things they hadn’t stolen, so it wasn’t worth the risk.
Nelson looked in the drawers of a writing desk, in scented cedar boxes and china pots painted with dolphins. He tried cupboards in the hall and storage jars in the kitchen. He loped upstairs and hunted in a dressing table then went through a dozen handbags stuffed in the top of a wardrobe. His fingers wormed into the pockets of countless pairs of giant slacks and he even tried on a pair, posing in a floor-to-ceiling mirror, holding the waistband far in front, pulling faces. Finally, inside a pocket of an enormous jacket, he felt a thin wad of notes.
‘Show!’ Nelson said.
There were six bills: green hummingbird, purple egret, red macaw, a plastic one with a bearded man and a red dot, brown Jaguar, blue grouper fish – one hundred and seventy-six reais. He twirled, fanning his bills like a dancer he’d seen in a soap. I won’t even steal, he thought. I’ll borrow the money until I get paid. I’ll ask for new notes at a bank and put them back. He could feel the eyes of Zila.
‘It’s true!’ Nelson said, spinning round. ‘Watch me!’
Nelson took a shower, shaved, did thirty-nine press-ups and tried to tame rebellious coils of hair. He put on black shorts and a red T-shirt with ‘Zicoooooo!’ fading on the chest. He laid his other clean T-shirt out on a table next to the bed in the room with the balcony, and pressed the photo of himself and his sister into the frame of a mirror. He packed the guitar in its case, picked up some keys and let himself out of the house.
Outside, a yellow tram ran past with black kids hanging on the open sides. He winked at a boy, who made a cool sign with his fingers. As the tram sped and slowed, sped and slowed, the kids played in its wake, letting their feet skip over the cobbles, swinging by fingertips from a rail. Nelson followed the shining tracks, humming a tune, feeling the world was better than a day before. He soon arrived at Largo dos Guimarães, where streets bumped into a square and overhead wires converged in a spiky web. Nelson walked down the street and through the swing doors of a restaurant he’d been passing for years.
It was a small place, with a dozen tables covered in blue-checked cloth. A radio in the kitchen warmed the air with forró and exhortations to aleeegriiiiiiiiaa!!!!! An old man slurped green soup in a corner. A freckled American couple in khaki shorts were trying to translate a menu using their guidebook. On another day Nelson might have offered his services, as he knew the English for some dishes thanks to his days as a waiter, but this was a day to be waited upon – a thought which made him grin at the Americans, who weren’t sure whether to be flattered or terrified.
A waitress in stretch-tight jeans with a green vest tied above her navel came to take his order. She refused to be drawn on the merits of goat with broccoli, so he plumped for a feast of carne de sol. The waitress told him his order was meant for two, refused his invitation to share it, and wiggled off to fetch a long-necked beer, which Nelson poured slowly into a frosted glass. He observed it for a good few seconds before he took a gulp, resisting an urge to gasp.
As he waited he looked at a copy of the Jornal do Brasil which someone had left on a table. He read that Sérgio was dead, having been suffocated by five policemen on the way to hospital – though why they were taking him to hospital was a mystery, since he hadn’t been injured. Geisa, the girl in the fireman’s arms, was dead too. A policeman had tried to shoot Sérgio, but missed from point blank range and shot Geisa instead, though Sérgio shot her after that as they both fell to the ground. The biggest surprise was that Sérgio wasn’t called Sérgio at all, but Sandro, though he had been christened Alex, they thought; and they didn’t know much about his life except that he was twenty-one and had been on the street since he was seven. To top it all, he was one of the kids that escaped the famous Candelária massacre in ’93, when the cops shot eight children as they slept outside the church. Well, you got him in the end, Nelson thought.
Nelson read the Candelária numbers. There were seventy-two kids sleeping at the church that night in ’93 and, of the sixty-four that survived, thirty-eight had since died violent deaths. Five more had died of AIDS, ten were in jail, two were dealers. Nine of the survivors still lived on the streets. Make that eight, the article said. If you liked your comedy dark, there was an endless night of laughter to be found in the newspaper. Nelson shook his head at a beautiful quote from the governor of Rio, who said, ‘It would have turned out better if the girl hadn’t been killed.’ One of the hostages said she didn’t have anything against Sandro, that he was a victim too and she didn’t wish him dead – only that he’d never existed. He didn’t exist for twenty-one years, thought Nelson.
The waitress brought his food and Nelson managed to tickle a smile. Her name was Selma. Maybe she’ll let me kidnap her, he thought. Since the meal was meant for two, Nelson wolfed the first person’s portion like a starving man, then took his time over the second – as he’d seen diners do in the Italian place: red-faced old men who ate with all the time in the world. Nelson chewed individual grains of rice and felt the meat’s texture with his tongue. He dabbed up every crumb. He finished the meal with a cafezinho and creamed papaya pudding. Selma refused his invitation to come back and plump his cushions, but, as he hopped on to a tram with his guitar, he thought there was really nothing he’d rather do than go to Bar do Paulo and see the regulars. On a day like this, there was no way he could lose on the ants.
Three
Joel’s assistant, Vicky, directed light into a pink cavern. A stalactite wobbled and white rocks glinted with gold and silver. Joel aimed the hypodermic towards the gum at the back of the
lower jaw and, as needle entered flesh, Mr Kenny emitted a sound like a baby bird hoping for a worm. He was a bit of a squealer, Mr Kenny, but a pleasant enough bloke, and Joel hoped the inferior block had worked. He often thought about Gilberto when he gave this injection. His father had always been proud of his steady hand; he’d once said that as he went in with the hypodermic he felt like a bullfighter with a single chance to sink the blade. His patients rarely experienced pain – at least, before his first stint in prison; afterwards his hand would shake as it neared the mouth. He took to drinking whisky to steady himself and started wearing a mask to hide the smell, mumbling curses as he willed the needle to sink in sweetly once again. As word of painful procedures spread, patient numbers waned.
When Mr Kenny had left, Joel flicked a pair of latex gloves into the bin and ran his fingers over his scalp. Eighteen mouths in an afternoon – some way to measure out your life. Still, it must have been more of an ordeal in his father’s time: hypodermics large as knitting-needles, digging out teeth left and right. Nowadays it was crowns and bridges, implants and cosmetic work, fillings which set by light alone. Restoration and enhancement were the watchwords – gone was the age of the Full Clearance: all the teeth extracted at once, replaced with sparkling dentures – a popular twenty-first birthday present in its time, or a generous start to married life for a lucky bride.
Yet there was something more captivating about dentistry in the old days. As a child, Joel loved to sit in the chair in his dad’s surgery, as Gilberto used the foot pump to raise him up and lower him down. Sometimes he’d sit quietly on a stool and watch him perform procedures with bare and nimble fingers, his gap-toothed smile at that time uninhibited by any mask. His dad would let him drop pink tablets of mouthwash to fizz in a glass tumbler, and Joel would play with the whizzing drill or go down to the basement, passing tanks of gas as big as World War Two bombs, to watch technicians fire bunsens to sculpt red wax mouths. Joel would take slabs of wax back to the Ipanema flat, and his mum would mould them into fishes and turtles, monkeys and pelicans.