by Ed Siegle
‘What’s the difference?’ said a very small boy.
‘They play futebol,’ said Nelson. ‘Not like Americans.’
‘Manchester United!’ said a medium girl.
‘I prefer Flamengo,’ said Joel.
‘Fla-merda,’ said another kid.
‘Tiago!’ said Rosa and cuffed him.
The eldest kid put out his hand. Joel gave him a wad of posters.
‘And the money?’ said the kid. ‘Forty.’
‘I thought it was thirty-five,’ said Joel.
‘Management fee,’ said the boy.
The kid shared out posters and the children looked at the photos. ‘Which one is he?’ said a little girl.
‘Both of them, stupid,’ said an older boy.
‘Are you a policeman?’ said a small boy.
‘He’s a dentist,’ said Nelson.
‘Look at my teeth!’ said an older girl, and bared them at Joel.
‘Perfect!’ said Joel with a smile.
‘Now scram!’ said Nelson.
The ring-leader formed the kids into a huddle and then, after a few explanations and complaints, they exploded in all directions, little ones stumbling over the cobbles.
‘Let’s eat,’ said Nelson.
Eva looked out of a tall window at Sugarloaf across the bay. The boss’s office had the most beautiful view in the world, but Eva knew beauty was never a guarantee of kindness – she might even say it was a warning sign. In her experience, being enthralled by something beautiful normally meant something ugly was about to creep up and kick you in the bunda. She had been expecting the meeting from which she had just emerged – there had been rumours for months. But the expectation of being kicked did nothing to lessen the bruising. Besides, there was always talk of cutbacks – that was how they kept you on your toes. It didn’t mean the day they cut you back would really come.
What was she supposed to do? Jobs like this did not grow like coconuts. The office-boy has greater job security, she thought, as he handed her a tissue. It’s a miracle I managed to last this long in a world of roving eyes and ageing wives. Eva could see the fat cats’ boats bobbing on the waters in front of the yacht club. What I wouldn’t give for a submarine and a dozen torpedos, she thought. Liam was in there talking to them now, bless the boy. It would do no good and they both knew it. He might buy her a week or two, and she supposed she ought to be grateful. She was grateful, to him at least.
She left the window and strutted round the room. A big celebration was required, a night out, that very evening or very soon. They’d go to Casa da Mãe Joana, the whole gang – Liam, the girls, the Americans, Joel – Nelson too, if he wanted – the more the merrier. She flopped down at her desk, ruffled her keyboard and pulled a face. What was the point of bothering? Reports to type, the office budget to do… screw them, Eva thought.
She picked up the phone and dialled.
‘Who’s speaking?’ said the voice which answered.
‘It’s me, my friend. Eva.’
‘Eva!’ said Marisa. ‘How are you?’
‘Tudo fatal, my friend. But I’m not going to speak about it now. Too much trouble, too much, my sister, what can I do? But just listen… I want to ask you a favour: I have a friend who’s looking for a man who lived here years ago, who may even have died here, in ’75 perhaps. I’ve tried a few people, I won’t go into details, but no one can find him. Then I started wondering… do you think you could dig around in the files and see if there are any records?’
‘I’ll try, my friend, I’ll try,’ said Marisa. ‘I can’t promise anything, but you never can tell. I’ll have a look here and ring around. Give me his name and what you know.’
When the call was over, Eva lay her head on her desk and listened to the sigh of the air-conditioning, the occasional rattle of the photocopier, PCs bleeping and people down the corridor chatting on the way to grabbing a cafezinho. When Eva opened her eyes, Liam was walking towards her desk, hands in pockets.
‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’ he said.
‘Buy me a couple of weeks, querido?’
‘Six,’ he said. ‘End of next month. I’m so sorry.’
‘Rule five: Never say sorry for something that’s not your fault.’
‘English curse, I guess.’
‘There are worse afflictions,’ she said.
At lunchtime, Liam and Eva walked up Avenida Rio Branco. The sun was high and hot and wetness from the morning rain had burned away. They passed newspaper kiosks with dailies pinned to arms spread wide, wove through vendors selling shampoo and toothpaste, pirate CDs and batteries on the pavement. They turned into a side street and sat outside a restaurant with other people in suits.
‘Can you expense this?’ said Eva.
‘Just let them try and stop me,’ said Liam.
‘Then I’ll have the biggest steak in the house and a caipirinha.’
‘Me too,’ said Liam.
Eva’s mobile buzzed across the table ringing ‘All You Need Is Love’.
‘Marisa!’ she said. ‘What a quick friend you are! Don’t tell me you’ve found him already?’
‘Found him here, no,’ said Marisa. ‘But someone up there must be saving smiles for you. I spoke to my friend in the 5th District cartório, and she thinks she might have found something. She’s going to check it out this afternoon.’
‘Progress?’ asked Liam.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Eva.
Eva felt bad about hiding the truth from Liam, after all he’d done. But she thought it was better to keep news from him until it was really news. If he spoke to Joel and told him half a truth, it might just make things worse.
The steaks and drinks arrived. They chinked tumblers and took a suck of caipirinha through their straws. With a flourish, Eva banged down her glass.
‘So,’ she said. ‘Do you think his dad is dead or alive?’
‘Alive,’ lied Liam.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. If he weren’t, I don’t think Joel would think he was.’
‘He’s pretty crazy about his father.’
‘What do you think?’ asked Liam.
‘Either he’s dead,’ she said, ‘or it’s better if he is.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘There’s only one thing worse than a dead father and that’s a bad one.’
‘Perhaps he’s reformed,’ suggested Liam.
‘So why didn’t he get in touch?’
‘There could be a million reasons.’
‘A million reasons you can’t give are not much better than none,’ said Eva.
‘Perhaps he thought he was protecting Joel. Or maybe he lost his memory, or his marbles.’
‘That’s all very logical, logical, Liaminho. But don’t you have a feeling about it too? Scare off all those sensible thoughts. What do you really think, querido? Can you imagine him alive?’
Liam sucked down the last of his caipirinha and twirled the mush at the bottom with his straw.
‘If I were a betting man…’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Don’t breathe a word of this to Joel.’
‘Never,’ she said.
‘Then I’d have to say… I think he’s dead.’
‘That poor, poor boy!’
‘Let’s hope we’re wrong.’
They sat and looked at their empty cocktail glasses for a few seconds.
‘If we’re so convinced he’s dead,’ said Liam, ‘why did we let Joel catch a bus with a bloke we hardly know?’
In the middle of the afternoon, Eva stood by a tall window again and looked across the bay to where cable-cars swung slowly up and down the wires which stretched to the top of Sugarloaf. It was years since she’d taken that ride. She remembered an old friend’s wedding reception, at a restaurant on the Morro da Urca, halfway up. Standing there, on a day like this with clouds hanging from the sky, a glass of champagne in one hand, her heels in the other, laughing at a stor
y the bride was telling as they looked out over the Marvellous City. The bride was in Miami now. It took Eva a minute to remember her name – a name that once upon a time she must have spoken several times a day. There had been an era – hadn’t there? – in which they’d all been going at the same speed; yet here Eva was, still in Rio, forty-six, divorced and redundant. She was glad she was still in Rio, but the rest of it could have gone a little faster, smoother, better.
Liam’s phone rang and she left it. Her mobile rang and she answered it.
‘Who’s speaking?’ said Eva.
‘It’s Marisa, Eva. I have some news for your friend.’
‘Already?’ said Eva.
‘I know, I know, there are miracles every day. The cartórios are so very organised these days. Somebody filed this one properly too, all perfect, perfect. My friend looked up the name and found it – voilà!’
‘And what did she find?’ said Eva.
‘I am sorry to say it, but… the certificate of death.’
‘Oh, my God.’
Marisa said her friend wasn’t really allowed to make a copy, but she liked to break the rules. Marisa would send a boy for it in the morning, and he’d bring it over to Eva.
Eva stood by the window, not daring to move, wondering how to inform Joel. She wasn’t even sure how to tell Liam. Perhaps he’d want to let Joel know himself – but was it right for Joel to hear it second-hand? She decided she would think of the perfect words, as only a woman of her experience could. The graveness of the situation superseded the demands of friendship – even regarding someone as dear to her as Liam. I’m sure Liam will understand, she thought. Would he really want to be the one to bear the news? She called the pousada in Paraty and left a message for Joel to call.
The sun was high in the Brighton sky, and Jackie’s skin was starting to blush in the places she’d missed with the sun lotion. She went inside and rummaged under the stairs for a parasol. She found a black umbrella.
‘You’ll have to do,’ she said.
She sat up in her deckchair and fiddled with the radio, letting an afternoon play speak gently in the background as she allowed her thoughts to drift back to Brazil. If her memories were determined to come calling, she might as well invite them in and give them cake.
Over the weeks following Gilberto’s first release, Jackie had learned, piece by piece, of his treatment following the return of Major Branca. Gilberto had refused to talk about his ordeal when Jackie asked, but instead fed her revelations piecemeal, sobbing in the middle of the night or, gripping his cutlery, across the white tablecloths of once favourite restaurants. Major Branca had put Gilberto under the supervision of Martelo. Sometimes Martelo put him with the malandros, sometimes he tortured Gilberto himself. ‘You wouldn’t believe the things a man can think of doing to another,’ Gilberto said. ‘But he never touched my face. The major had left clear instructions.’
One day Gilberto was helped across the compound, the afternoon sun flashing into his nocturnal eyes, and taken into a room with carpets and a ceiling fan with giant blades. He was made to stand in front of a desk, behind which sat the major. It was peculiar, Gilberto told Jackie, to see him smart in his uniform, a fish comfortable in his tank, so different from the man who’d sat in the corner at A Gaiola.
‘Do you know why you’re here?’ asked the major.
‘I’m innocent,’ whispered Gilberto.
‘Of what crime?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘Aha! Then how can you be sure?’ said the major.
‘I always steer clear of trouble.’
‘Artists are trouble.’
‘I don’t like artists. I sing a little, that’s all. I’m a dentist, first and foremost.’
‘My wife’s dentist.’
‘Your wife?’
‘An actor as well? Bravo!’
‘I hate actors,’ said Gilberto.
‘I hate liars.’
The major stood up and nodded to a soldier, who strutted across the room and placed the tip of his gun against the side of Gilberto’s skull.
‘I know about your affair with Angelica,’ said the major. ‘I’ve had better men shot for less.’
Gilberto decided to say nothing. It was hard to think with metal pressing against his skin and he wasn’t sure how his voice would emerge. He also knew that he could lie well to those who wanted to believe him, but that it was harder to lie to someone who didn’t. At a nod from the major, the soldier removed the gun from Gilberto’s temple and started to move around. With each wandering step Gilberto feared a blow.
‘Perhaps you think your silence will convince? Like a trapped spider hoping to be invisible. Let me spare you the humiliation of an exposed lie. Men of mine followed you to our flat, observed you together at concerts –’
‘Then they will have seen we never touched.’
‘Why else meet the wife of another man in secret?’
‘It wasn’t a secret – I told my wife.’
‘Secret from me.’
‘I didn’t know you.’
‘Was Jackie pleased?’
Gilberto told Jackie how much it hurt to hear the major say her name.
‘No,’ said Gilberto.
‘If you were prepared to harm her, why would you not betray me?’
‘I didn’t mean to hurt anyone. I thought Angelica could help me.’
‘Did she?’
‘She robbed me.’
‘Ha! Ha! Took your money, my beautiful witch! Robbed you of your liberty too – you fool. Took your freedom, your marriage – perhaps even your life.’
‘She didn’t take my marriage. My wife still loves me.’
‘Only last week she paid a visit to a travel agent. I hear she was very interested in the price of tickets to London. One-way tickets, for an adult and a child.’
‘You’re a liar!’
‘I’ll wager she’s packing her bags as we speak.’
‘She’d wait forever!’
‘She might have to.’
Gilberto didn’t hear the swing of the rifle butt, which sunk a shard of pain into the side of his head.
‘Be very careful with his face,’ said Major Branca.
Gilberto expected blows to hail but he was taken back to his cell. In the middle of the night he was woken by a guard with the face of a child and led to a room with a single chair to which he was tied with a dog’s muzzle over his mouth.
‘Assim,’ Martelo would say, as he swung the broken handle of a sledgehammer. Like this. ‘Isso!’ he would say when the youngster got it right. Like that!
Gilberto was moved to a comfortable cell in a light and airy wing where they dressed his wounds and fed him palatable food. When he could stand, from the windows he could see the mountains. One afternoon when the sun was high and a cool breeze stroked the leaves of the mango trees in the yard, Gilberto was marched across the compound and taken to a room where he was made to sit in a dentist’s chair. A nurse laid out instruments without meeting his eyes and a tall, thin dentist washed his hands in a corner sink. Gilberto spotted five types of forceps and an elevator. Major Branca entered and stood by Gilberto’s side.
‘I’m sorry to see your teeth have suffered slightly during your time under my wing. A dentist can’t be allowed to have bad teeth – such a poor advertisement to his patients. Neither does a son want to see his father with brown teeth, and your wife will want to kiss you if she hasn’t caught that plane.’
The nurse tilted back the chair so that Gilberto looked up into the nostrils of the major. A soldier strapped down Gilberto’s arms and legs, lifted his head to slip a brace under his neck then tightened a strap across his forehead. The nurse put a prop in the right hand side of his mouth, wedging it open.
‘I know Angelica came to see you, here in my own prison. She was very clever – forging my signature, lying to the lieutenant. I would still be blissfully ignorant, were it not for your wife. I was at the Ipanema flat one afternoon when the phone rang
and your darling wife called. She has quite a vocabulary!’
As the major talked, Gilberto followed the assistant with his eyes. She laid out the different forceps on a table and moved the aspirator unit nearer to the chair. The aspirator was new – Gilberto had seen a similar one in a catalogue from America.
‘A dead lover is certainly a sharp warning against infidelity,’ said Major Branca. ‘But Angelica has a short memory for dead lovers. You are lucky, in a way, that you are not her first. I have come to the conclusion – call it trial and error – that a lover maimed might serve as a more durable reminder.’
The dentist and his assistant nodded to one another. She turned on the aspirator and moved the nozzle closer to Gilberto. The dentist approached with an elevator, which he inserted into Gilberto’s mouth, between the upper molars, and rotated. Gilberto yelped.
‘You’re strong. Not everyone survives Martelo. We’ll look after you well. You’ll recover sooner than you think. And, lest you worry about shocking your poor family, we’ve made you a lovely new set of teeth. They’ve even got a gap in the middle just like yours. Call it a parting gift. I hope you’ll think of me every night when you take them out, and every morning when you put them in.’
Where was the syringe? Please God, thought Gilberto, let there be a syringe. The dentist stopped separating the rear molars, the nurse cleared some blood, and the dentist approached again with a pair of molar forceps.
‘They say the pain is at its peak with the first extraction, when it comes as a surprise. After a while one becomes accustomed – though I hear the canines can be a bitch. They tell me the molars can be troublesome too, with three roots or even four. I’m sure you’re quick with your patients but, if all doesn’t go to plan, I hear a testing molar can take minutes. You’ll lose quite a bit of blood, I expect, especially without an anaesthetic, but there’s plenty to spare in a hot-blooded man like you.’
The dentist gripped an upper molar between the jaws of the forceps and pulled.
‘My wife will see how pitiful you are, how broken,’ the major continued. ‘She’ll come to see you for an appointment every now and again. I will insist. She’ll see you only because I order it. And one last thing: if I ever hear you’ve so much as hummed a lullaby, I’ll have you back here quicker than you can say jardim!’