by Ed Siegle
Frank spent a lot of time away on business for a mining company, and, the week Miriam declared to Jackie that she was in love, Frank declared he’d been offered a full-time post in Rio de Janeiro. He wanted Miriam to follow him. He said he could pull a few strings and find her work. At sunset one summer’s evening, in the the back of his car at Devil’s Dyke, he mentioned the word marriage. Miriam pressed him excitedly.
‘Love is not a pie to bake in a day,’ he said.
Frank left for Brazil and Miriam waited. For months he wrote to her of palm-tasselled beaches and coconut cocktails, of pudding mountains and blancmange sunsets. Miriam would sit on her bed and draft replies, while Jackie looked up words in Roget’s Thesaurus. They wrote of the imperious Palace Pier and the decadent domes of the Pavilion, of the unctuous curves of the Downs, multifarious pebbles on the beach. Frank’s replies made promises and promises, until, just as they were starting to wonder if his feelings for Miriam were veritable, Frank wrote that he’d found a small flat three blocks from Ipanema beach. If Miriam felt nervous about coming alone, he wrote – why didn’t she bring Jackie? The two of them could live like birds of paradise by the turquoise sea.
Jackie thought about it for a few seconds then said, ‘Where on earth will I find a bikini here in December?’
‘Oh, Jacks!’ said Miriam. ‘You can’t, can you?’
‘You’re not leaving me alone in this dump.’
‘But what about Edward? I thought –’
‘I’m sure there are plenty of Eduardos.’
The girls squealed and hugged. It felt so right. They drafted their acceptance of his most felicitous invitation and, that freezing December evening, ran barefoot to the postbox, ensuring their fate was sealed before they changed their minds.
Jackie hummed all the way home, almost skipping down the hill lest she be late for supper. As she opened the front door she heard men’s voices in the living room. She put her coat on the hat-stand and listened. She could make out her father talking, laughing, and another man’s quiet assent. Her first thought was that her father must have been promoted. Twenty-five years of loyal service and never a day’s work missed. Jackie could smell sweet pipesmoke. She could hear the hiss of the pressure cooker. She was wondering if she should change into a frock with a longer hem, when the door to the sitting-room opened and her father stood in the gap, managing to grin and speak while biting on his pipe.
‘Here she is!’ he said. ‘I thought I heard something. Not losing the old hearing yet.’
He always filled out his Sussex lilt when he wanted to impress. Perhaps it was Mr Le Marchant himself. Jackie sagged at the propect of an evening being patronised and ignored. Her father held the door and she entered, a compliant smile already forming, to find herself surprised: beside the mantelpiece, cigarette askew in poiseless fingers, stood Edward Squires. He wore a green cardigan and shiny brown shoes and his cheeks burned a pretty red. Jackie adjusted her grin. What was he doing here? Oh, God! Did this mean her father was going to start talking about ‘courting’? Would her mother take her aside to warn her of men’s ways? The only ways Edward knew, Jackie had taught him herself. She felt a spurt of annoyance as she took his hand, with intentional weakness, and said, ‘Edward.’ She normally teased him with ‘Teddy’.
Over a dinner of boiled ham, mashed potato, carrots, onions, cabbage and parsley sauce, Edward did try very hard not to talk about accountancy, but her father seemed determined to enlighten some imaginary audience with a discourse on the fruits it bore the civilised world. ‘Bore’ was certainly the word, Jackie thought, as she rubbed her toes on Edward’s brogues. To be admired were men with the bravery to fight the dragon of fiscal chaos, brave souls with the resolution to subject savage figures to their rule. Jackie watched her mother eat neatly and dispense the occasional smile. She longed to know what she really thought. The ham was beautifully cooked and – perhaps noting Jackie’s glances at her mother, or simply because he was well brought-up – Edward complimented her on it. He even shot Jackie a conspiratorial glance during one of her father’s diatribes, and Jackie winked back and remembered that he was not without a sense of humour. As her mother poured parsley sauce on to Edward’s seconds, Jackie thought of a new trick to teach him later. As her mother offered home-made lemonade, she thought of the lime cocktails Frank had mentioned in his letters. She wondered how she could ever tell them of her Brazilian plans.
Her mother brought cheese and port. Jackie detected an acceleration in proceedings. Cheddar chunks were set on crackers and consumed before they were settled. Port glasses were left isolated on the bleached tablecloth. Father disappeared to help Mother with the washing-up – never known before. Jackie found herself in the living room with Edward. He stood ten feet from her, hands behind his back. He coughed, rouged and sank to one knee.
Jackie wanted to laugh and to throttle him. The melodrama of his action was accentuated by the distance between them. He reminded her of a man proposing up on a stage in some dreadful farce. But the black box he produced was not for some other reluctant heroine.
‘Jacqueline,’ he said with trembling lips, ‘will you marry me?’
All was quiet in the house.
‘Oh, Teddy,’ she said. ‘I simply can’t, I’m sorry. You see –’
‘Now wait a minute, young lady,’ said her father, entering from the hall, followed, a little sheepishly, by her mother.
‘I’m sorry,’ Jackie said. ‘But I just can’t. Teddy, darling, don’t you think you should have mentioned this – ?’
‘Don’t be so bloody silly,’ said her father. ‘Talk to her, Audrey, for goodness’ sake…’
Audrey and Jackie looked at Edward – everything a father could wish for, a father like hers at least. Edward was still on one knee and didn’t quite know what to do with his hands, now that the box had dropped to the carpet, and given that his only ever sweetheart was not about to be mantled in his arms. Jackie saw that her mother gazed upon Edward with the same eyes as herself: full of pity, but lacking even a grain of doubt. She felt heartened that her mother didn’t want her to have this man, no matter how well his books balanced.
‘I can’t marry you, Teddy,’ said Jackie, looking her father in the eyes. ‘Because I’ve accepted a new position. In Rio de Janeiro.’
Across town Miriam told her parents about Frank’s offer. Her mum wept into her bread and butter pudding. It was so far away; when would they ever see her? Miriam and her mum sobbed on the sofa and her dad made them tea. Miriam was to tell him every detail, he said. Of what the job consisted and where they would be living and how the arrangements were to be made. He said he’d talk to people he knew in the foreign service, from his days in the ’50s in Hong Kong. He imagined Rio to be similar in many ways: a beautiful city by a bay, plenty of potential, an expat life. Men like Frank had put the Great in Britain by trading in places just like these. South America was the future. He would talk to Frank himself, make sure all the ‘t’s were crossed. Play her cards right and Miriam could live in the lap of luxury. It had a ring to it: Mrs Miriam Duff. She’d fallen on her feet this time, no two ways about it. And if Jackie could tag along – so much the better. It was always good to have a friend at hand.
The friend was at hand sooner than expected. Within the hour he opened the door to find Jackie with a suitcase, a cut lip and mascara trailing down her cheeks.
A month or so later, in January 1963, Frank met them at Rio airport and a driver took them to their Ipanema flat, which was small but bright, on the third floor of a block, with a view of the sea if you craned your neck. It was hard to pick out the details of that first day in a city which became so familiar over the years. She remembered thinking how round and mossy the mountains looked, that she could feel the sun burning within minutes on her skin, that there were more trees than she’d expected in the streets and that the sea seemed to lurk round every corner. But the first night she would remember forever. Frank told them they were going to see a friend sing at a c
lub, where Frank himself tickled the ivories every now and again. He mushed caipirinhas in their tiny kitchen as they put on short frocks and low heels, then, feeling distinctly tipsy, they walked away from the beach a few blocks until they emerged from a leafy street on to a road by the shores of a lake. Here and there the slopes of the mountains glittered with tiny lights, and beyond the water, illuminated on the point of a peak, stood the famous statue of Christ, looking away to the right.
To the left was a two-storey building with a neon sign which read ‘A Gaiola’. They climbed narrow stairs, feeling a lift of anticipation as they brushed posters that told of a thousand shows, including the bill for that very night, headed by O Rouxinol de Ipanema – the Nightingale of Ipanema. A hostess greeted them with a ‘Hi, Frankie!’ and three kisses on his cheeks, then led them to a table at the front. Six feet away, in a spotlight on a low stage, stood a red velvet stool and a table upon which sat a thin glass of beer. Jackie watched the bubbles in the golden liquid rise as the room flowed with murmurs.
A hand reached out of the darkness and picked up the glass. The hand was dark and extended from a white cotton shirt. Onto the stool he slid, smiling with mouth closed unto the multitude, which hushed. From behind him came the clickety-click of a stick on hollow wood, then a few high notes were plucked on a mandolin. As a flute joined and swept the ensemble into a rhythm, the Nightingale showed the gap in his teeth and started to sing.
On Saturday morning, Nelson decided to get a better feel for the famous guitar, so he sat on the chair in the music room and played ‘Aguas de Março’ and a few of his own compositions. As he played he told himself it had not been the biggest lie to say this was the best guitar in Brazil. It was the finest Nelson had played, and he’d played many. There was no doubt Yemanjá was working on his case: first the donation of the guitar, then the appearance of her very incarnation at the Bar das Terezas. Nelson didn’t believe in Fate – it was hard to have faith when it dealt you losing hands. But perhaps the cards were better this time. One minute Zemané is telling him to find someone; the next a woman in white swims into his life. It fitted together like sugar and limes.
Nelson took a cold shower, ate some papaya then watched the news. He thought about songs and wondered how many Americans would come. When his stomach persisted with its gurgles, he walked down to the restaurant and ordered carne de sol for the third time in four days. He watched the waitress wiggle through a beaded curtain into the kitchen. He heard the cook’s low voice, her giggle and then silence. If Nelson ever ran a restaurant – it was possible, he thought, the way things were going – he would make certain there was no canoodling between cook and waitress. Even if Selma did prefer the cook to him, the dissemblance of possibility could have added magic to his lunchtimes. In his restaurant Nelson would ensure the waiters and waitresses never broke diners’ spells.
There was a newspaper on a table again, and Nelson looked for more pieces about the hijacked bus. Man! – the police were taking a hiding, which made him slap the table in joy. There were allegations that the officers who’d strangled Sandro had tried to persuade the doctors to hide the cause of death. One report said they’d wanted to enter the morgue and fill the body with bullets. Someone had tampered with the wagon in which Sandro died, and there were now more bullets in the gun fired by the policeman who shot Geisa than when it was first seized. Nelson swigged his beer and read some of the letters. An ex-policeman said killing Sandro was in line with the thinking of the cop around the world: that he was born to kill the outlaw. Nelson couldn’t speak for the rest of the world but it was hard to argue in Brazil: 289 killed by the cops last year in the state of Rio. The governor’s view was that this showed they were beating crime – ridding the streets of undesirables, shooting the city clean. The governor was a one-man comedy show. At the very moment the hijack was taking place he was giving a speech about how violence and police brutality lived only in the imagination of journalists. Meanwhile thirty million Brazilians were watching this ‘fiction’ with their own eyes. The letters were full of anger and sadness. Solutions were proposed – a lady from Singapore argued for the death penalty. We already have it, babaco, thought Nelson. To counter the claims of incompetence, the police were already in action mode – there were blitzes on the buses, six hundred officers manning roadblocks, and already this week at least one man shot dead. Nelson asked himself how many people being searched would be black and how many white, and he knew the answer well enough, just as he knew the blitzes would cease once the memory of Sandro died, and that nothing would ever really change.
Nelson scraped the last sandy farofa from his plate and called for the bill. Selma appeared, unashamedly flushed. He searched his pockets but could only find a couple of notes, which covered the meal but left him with only coins.
As he stood to leave, Selma said, ‘I almost forgot – your friend was looking for you.’
‘Beleza!’ said Nelson. ‘My friend Yemanjá or my friend Cristo?’
‘You shouldn’t joke about them,’ she said, ‘they can see everything.’
‘Even into the kitchen?’
‘Ha, ha, ha,’ said the waitress, rolling her pretty eyes.
‘Was he a round man in a straw hat?’ asked Nelson hopefully.
‘More of a mountain in a Vasco shirt.’
‘How lucky I am to have such caring friends.’
He scampered home. If they’d traced him to the restaurant it wouldn’t be long before they found the house. That was the trouble with the gods – always giving with one hand and taking away with the other. Ours not to reason why, ours just to be mucked around. Fat Paulo said they were all the same: gods, politicians, women. But Nelson thought that was fuzzy thinking. Each god was weird in his or her own way, each politician was more corrupt than the next, and no two women were alike. Life for a spiritual, poor, single man was about as easy as making ice on Ipanema beach.
Nelson practised for a few more hours, expecting a knock on the door at any time. He laid down the guitar as darkness jumped on the city and lights flicked on across the panorama. He stood at the window and wondered whether he’d ever stop running. Running, running, running – every day since Zila died and he and little Mariana moved into a shack in Chácara do Céu. Running from one job to another: shining the shoes of tooth-picking businessmen on the pavements of Centro; cleaning cars in a back-street in Catete; collecting tin cans in a rickety cart with a rhythmic squeak. The best job of all had been working as a delivery boy for a supermarket in the South Zone, wheeling trolleys home for rich people and unloading groceries on to cool tiled kitchen floors. Sometimes the Americans had given him a refrigerante – a Coke if he was lucky – and they would often tip far more than Brazilians. Some of the Americans who spoke Portuguese would try to engage him in conversation: ‘Where do you live, moço? Do you live in a favela? Do you like soccer? Who’s your favourite player? I hear that Zico guy is awesome.’ Nelson lost that job owing to the theft of a bottle of cachaça, which the boys all knew had been stolen by a security guard.
Running faster still since Mariana died. Cities, towns, hills, shacks – until here he was on a Saturday evening in June of the new millennium, looking over a world he’d never stopped tearing round. There were only two ways out of the race: you won or you lost. No one could keep on going forever. Nelson wondered how close he was to the end.
He turned from the window and put the guitar in its welcoming case. He clapped his hands and did a little dance. Well, however close he was, there was no doubt it was going to be quite a night. Centre-stage in front of a crowd, playing an instrument he adored, singing songs of his choosing, amusing Americans with his anecdotes and taking their eagerly proffered dollars. If it was to be the finale – if Adolfo or Vasco did show up – then so be it. If he could choose a final night on earth, this would be the one.
Nelson watched the Flamengo game sitting on a big cushion. He drank a couple of bottles of beer, though they didn’t taste quite as good as a freshly poure
d chopp at Bar do Paulo. It felt odd to have neither mates with whom to yell at the players nor hands to slap when Tuta’s goal went in, so Nelson leapt around slapping imaginary palms and laughing with fantasy friends, which did not feel half as strange as it must have looked. In fact, it was nice to have some space in which to roam, and he found he could be more flamboyant now there were no eyes to evaluate his moves. When Nelson had lived on the street, he’d often felt invisible to the world, but also that he had no privacy. The world watched him when it wanted to and ignored him when it didn’t. With a place of his own a man could choose. Nelson saw Flamengo’s victory as an omen and wondered which of the gods was in charge of football. He didn’t think of Jesus as a football man – though, if he were, Nelson suspected he’d play like an Englishman: with rudimentary skill but prepared to be crucified for victory. Buddha would play like a Brazilian, since all the neutrals loved him and he never went out to do his brothers harm. As for the Devil, everyone knew he played for Argentina – a fact from which the Argentines no doubt drew great pride.
He changed into white cotton trousers and a white shirt he’d bought at a street market. Americans liked the look of a black man in white, as if it made him less of the animal they feared. Nelson checked the mirror to ensure his curls were in order, then skipped downstairs, scooped up the guitar and hit the street. It was a beautiful time of night, an hour when disappointment seemed impossible. As Nelson walked downwards, downwards, he felt he might break into a run at any moment. He walked round cobbled corners and down cracked flights of steps as the view of the city sank up to meet him, until he emerged behind the arches of Lapa, which already teemed with night fish. Chords and gentle beats floated though the crowds from open-windowed bars. Some youths stood hard-faced on corners; others snaked through the hordes holding hands. Nelson weaved through partygoers and pavement vendors, taking a final sniff of the night before he stepped through a door.