by Ed Siegle
Sometimes the human capacity for evil scared him. He’d been to Birkenau and seen the sunken ruins of the murder factories, where men had shovelled the bodies of thousands into ovens, every day. Men could do that to other men; his dad could hurl a fist into his mum – who was to say Joel couldn’t hurt another person, perhaps one unexpected day when the world just started to turn wrong. Would he climb upon another man to save his neck; could he send a woman to the gas chambers? He didn’t think he could; it didn’t seem like him at all. But was there any man who could be sure?
Nine
Joel woke at dawn and lay in bed wondering whether his dad was also awake. Today their parabolic curves would intersect. He wondered whether his dad had any inkling – had he risen with a feeling the day was somehow different? Perhaps blurred images of Joel had wandered into his dreams. Later they would talk of omens, noticed before but now understood, of remembered years and forgotten years and the years to come.
He got up and showered, dressed, and went to the kitchen where he made coffee. He sat at the table outside. He looked at his watch. It was half-past seven.
Liam emerged, showered and suited. ‘The big day,’ he said.
‘The big day,’ said Joel.
‘Got your compass?’
‘Check.’
‘Speech?’ said Liam with eyebrows raised.
‘I’ll wing it.’
‘Handcuffs?’
‘Handcuffs?’ frowned Joel.
‘Can’t let the bugger get away again.’
‘If he tries I’ll kill him myself.’
Liam left and Joel tried to watch television. CNN, the cartoon channel. He watered the hibiscus on the balcony. He called his bank in the UK, then when it was late enough he went into a branch on Visconde de Pirajá and withdrew money. He went back to the flat and put the cash in an envelope, sealed it and wrote ‘Nelson’ on the outside. He put it in a money belt which he tucked into his shorts.
At twelve the buzzer went.
Nelson was waiting outside with his red rucksack over his shoulder. They started walking. They stopped near the corner of Praça General Osório for a coffee and a juice and ordered two folhados. Joel made himself eat. When they had finished they walked a couple of blocks and turned towards the lake. They reached it and headed round to the right. Beyond the lake stood Cristo and the mountains. The sun was high. Joel wished he’d worn a hat, then wondered what he’d have done with a hat when he met his dad. Would he have taken it off and clutched it out of respect? Perhaps it was better to be loose and unencumbered. Joel’s shirt stuck to his chest and his palms were sweaty. He wiped them on his shorts. He wondered if his dad would really be there. They must be only minutes away. They walked on further, trying to stay in the shade, then Nelson brought them to a halt. Fifty yards ahead was a restaurant with a yellow sign that read ‘O Paraiso’. There were a few empty tables outside.
‘Are you ready?’ Nelson said.
‘Is that it?’
‘That’s it, my friend.’
‘OK,’ said Joel. ‘Let’s go.’ He strode towards the restaurant, conscious of every step and swing of his arms. How will I look when I walk through the door? Joel asked himself. Will he recognise me? Joel wondered if a father could look at a son and not know it was his child. Perhaps he’ll know me with the eyes of his heart. Twenty-five years and thousands of miles were now all down to a few yards and a couple of minutes. The moment would pass and they would be on the other side of it. God only knew how that would feel.
Nelson hurried to keep up. Oh, Zila, he said to himself. Oh, my goddess Yemanjá! Oh, Jesus and Buddha and you with the many arms and the elephant’s head – let Gilberto be there. Nelson knew he had a piece of paper in his hand which looked as if it held the truth that Joel sought – but what was a piece of paper to the gods, who must have a thousand miracles in their pockets, a dozen resurrections at their fingertips? What was a piece of paper they could torch with a fork of lightning in an instant? They had the power to make this man Joel’s father, even if he wasn’t. If you ever grant me a miracle, Nelson thought with his eyes closed tight, let it be this.
Joel stepped inside and scanned the tables. A waiter in a waistcoat put a menu under his arm and started to approach. Nelson caught up with Joel and stood behind him. Joel could hear him breathing a little heavily. A ceiling fan moved slowly round, pushing a breeze over Joel’s face, lightly stroking a shadow over the tablecloths and clusters of people having lunch. Joel could hear a Gil song on the radio, the chink of glasses and cutlery, a clatter from the kitchen, the sound of conversation and laughter. The waiter was on them now and asking if they wanted a table. Joel shook his head, his eyes searching. To the left there were tables with two or three people having lunch; to the right there was a business party of eight or nine. Joel had a feeling he couldn’t see because he was looking too hard. Then, as Nelson touched his arm and raised his hand to point, Joel saw a pillar with a bare leg behind it, towards the kitchen at the back. He moved to his right, stepping past the waiter. Close to the door of the kitchen he saw a ragged man sitting with his cheek supported in a half-closed fist. He had matted white hair and wore a Flamengo shirt and shorts. His eyes were closed.
Joel moved closer, slowly, not daring to wake the man, and he saw that on his table was a plate which looked as though it had been licked clean. Joel stopped six feet away and studied the face and form of the man. Was this really his dad? There was no thunderbolt. How was he meant to feel? Perhaps the eyes of his heart were blind. The man looked peaceful. He reminded Joel of a painting by Vermeer – of a maid sitting alone in a corner, stealing forty winks. Joel moved closer, wondering if he should reach down and touch skin he hadn’t touched, perhaps, since he was a child. The man opened his eyes.
They looked at each other for an age, or so it seemed to Joel. The shape of the face was right and the hair. His shirt was dirty, like that of the man in the video clip. How was Joel supposed to know how his father might have aged? This man could have been sixty or ninety, though he looked worn more by hardship than by time. Like those photos of men at Auschwitz, thought Joel – thirty-year-olds turned sixty in a couple of years. The man’s eyes were right, and there were lines of joy and sorrow spreading from their corners.
It could be my dad, thought Joel, it really could be my dad.
He was about to ask his name, when the man released a beaming smile.
Joel could have believed the lies of eyes, but not those of teeth. There was a gap – yes – but too much of a gap, in fact a missing tooth. It wasn’t the only tooth missing and nor were the teeth that uniform, and in fact there was little doubting the fact that what remained of this man’s teeth were his own.
‘Forgive me,’ said Joel.
They left the restaurant. Joel walked a few yards then sat on the pavement with his back against a wall. Nelson stood close to him, trying not to shuffle, wondering what to say. He felt the gods had let him down. Could a dead man not be hauled from his grave on a Rio Thursday? Not for a son who’d travelled five thousand miles? I hope you’ll understand if I’m a little irreverent for a while, thought Nelson. What can you expect when you make it so hard? He couldn’t help but think the gods were like spoilt children: announcing themselves with a tantrum here, a catastrophe there, as if the human race were simply there to mop up. Yet come the hour you wanted them to repay your devotion: surprise, surprise – they were nowhere to be seen.
He crouched next to Joel. ‘I hate to do this,’ he said. ‘But there’s something I have to show you. Eva’s friend did find something. We persuaded her not to show you until we’d come here, hoping it might be wrong. I’m sorry if that wasn’t the right thing to do.’
Nelson took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Joel.
Joel unfolded it. He saw that it was a certidão de óbito, a death certificate. On it was Gilberto’s name and a statement that he died at four a.m. on the 21st of December, in the year one thousand nine hundred and ninety-five, in
this city, at his home address in the Rua Otávio Correia, Urca. The cause of death was blank. The place of burial was listed as the Cemitério São João Batista and in the space marked ‘Witness’ was the name Angelica Branca, of the same abode.
‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ said Joel.
He read the date again. 1995. His father had died five years ago. He’d lived for twenty more years, and not a word. Twenty years living with a serpent.
‘Do you know where this address is?’ Joel asked.
‘We can find it, sure.’
‘Let’s go and see if Angelica is still there,’ said Joel.
‘You know her?’
‘I know who she is.’
‘You want to go now?’
‘Yes.’
They flagged a cab which took them to Urca, under the plum of Sugarloaf, where the houses were well kept, the gutters clean – the only neighbourhood free of a favela, they said.
Joel stared out of the window silently, gripping the handle of the door, and Nelson watched him in case he tried to jump or bolt or hit someone. Joel thought about his not-so-long-dead dad. Perhaps Angelica and Gilberto had lived in Urca for years, rejecting thoughts of previous marriages and lives and children – deciding to start afresh when he got out of jail, to build a new life by the bay where Gilberto once taught Joel to sail. Perhaps he had simply decided to live with a woman he loved, who was not the woman he had first married. A sad but straightforward story, a question of choices: to live loveless with a son or sonless with a love. Further each day from traumas of the past, far from potential troubles on the other side of the ocean. How much easier to let those troubles sleep. Or maybe they’d had children of their own, grown-up now, who’d made them proud. Perhaps another son had knocked a football across a square, sat on a stool and watched Gilberto work, followed him into dentistry.
Joel found it hard to adjust the image of his father from that of a gaunt man in a Flamengo shirt to a man living in a smart neighbourhood with a woman he’d known for thirty years. A man with the wits to buy paper, a pen, an envelope, a stamp; a man who was happy, not torn from the ones he loved – separated by choice, not circumstance.
Nelson kept one eye on Joel and the other on the apartment numbers. They drew closer, driving down a road with the bay shining in a gap at the end. It was just up here on the right. They paid the driver and stood on the pavement outside the block. Joel wished he still smoked. Nelson shuffled his feet with his hands in his pockets.
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ Nelson said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m with you, brother. We’ll find that truth.’
‘The truth is scaring the shit out of me,’ said Joel.
‘Think of all the truth we already know… an ocean of it. We haven’t drowned yet.’
‘No,’ said Joel. ‘OK, let’s ring the bell.’
It was a three-storey block. They pressed a buzzer and waited. The intercom briefly fizzed then a woman’s voice said, ‘Hello?’
Joel paused before saying ‘Angelica Branca?’
‘That’s right, darling. And who might you be?’
‘My name is Joel.’
‘Joe?’
‘Joel. Joel Cabral.’
‘Nossa…’ said the voice.
The buzzer buzzed and Joel pushed open the gate.
‘Do you want me to come up with you?’ asked Nelson quietly.
‘Perhaps it’s better if I face this dragon alone,’ said Joel.
Nelson smiled, patted Joel on the back and stuck up a little thumb. Joel entered a patio thick with palms, took stairs to the second floor and knocked. Footsteps came and the door opened.
Angelica was thin, with pale skin which was finely made-up. She wore a white shirt with a turned-up collar and a straight dark skirt. She was a little taller than he’d expected, older than in his head – she looked a few years older than his mother.
‘What a wonderful surprise! The long-lost son,’ she said excitedly, and touched his arm, as if checking he was real.
‘I need to ask some questions,’ said Joel, moving his arm away.
‘Of course, darling, but let me look at you. God, you look so like Gil, darling, it’s breathtaking,’ she said with a gasp.
Joel wondered how much he did look like his dad – he could only tell so much from the photographs. There was no one apart from his mother who could make a proper appraisal, and she wasn’t inclined to draw comparisons. It struck him then that Angelica must have been with his father for more years than his mother, which seemed unjust.
Suddenly Angelica’s eyes widened, and she exclaimed, ‘My God! You do know he’s dead, don’t you, darling?’
‘Yes. I found that out about half an hour ago.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘You must come and sit down.’
Joel followed her into a sitting room. There were a few antiques, some bookshelves, a bird cage without a bird, and black and white photographs of people leaving night-spots, though Joel couldn’t discern his father in any of them.
‘Take a seat, please,’ she said, nodding at a sofa.
Joel didn’t really feel like sitting down, especially at her behest, but standing felt awkward, so he did.
Angelica sat across from him in an armchair. She lit a long cigarette and said, ‘So you came, at last. A little late to see your father, but you did find me. Do you mind if I ask you how?’
‘Your name was on the death certificate,’ sad Joel.
‘Ahhh! Good work, querido!’
‘Look, if you don’t mind, I’d just like to know what happened – there’s a twenty-year hole to fill.’
‘I can tell you everything, of course, but the facts aren’t very pretty, to be honest darling.’
‘I’m not expecting a fairytale. How much uglier can it really get?
‘That depends how squeamish you are. But go ahead, fire away.’
Joel paused. ‘OK. So what happened after we left? When did they let him out?’
‘Oh, he wasn’t gone that long – he was a lucky boy,’ Angelica said. ‘The major died of a heart attack, you see – in flagrante, screwing one of my friends. The irony! There was little reason to keep Gilberto in jail. No one knew why he was there. They could have killed him to answer that question – but he was a charming man.’
‘What year was that?’ asked Joel, in disbelief.
‘It must have been early in ’76.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ said Joel. He stood up and started to pace around. He thought of himself in 1976, sitting at a table in Brighton, writing letters and taking them to the postbox on the corner, pushing them into the slot.
‘It must hurt. I’m sorry for that,’ Angelica said, and for a moment a softness in her voice made Joel want to believe she meant it.
‘So why didn’t he get in touch?’ said Joel, standing in the middle of the room. ‘Was he traumatised or…?’
Angelica looked on him with curious eyes. He felt annoyed at being the object of curiosity. His dad was dead, but not long dead, and the news of that had yet to do anything like settle. Yet here he was, standing before a woman who’d played a part in amputating a limb of his life, a woman who now regarded him as if he was a mystery.
‘The first thing you have to know about Gilberto,’ Angelica said, ‘is that he was a liar.’
‘For all I know, you could be the liar,’ said Joel, pointing at her.
‘Oh, I can lie all right. What would you like me to invent?’
‘I don’t want you to make it up,’ said Joel, trying to keep his temper in check. ‘Just tell me what really happened.’
‘He did a deal with a woman from a cartório, and sold her your flat for a good price to keep her quiet. He paid them all to lie to your mother that he was dead.’
‘But why on earth would anyone do that?’ said Joel. ‘Why?’
‘He didn’t want to live in England; he wanted to be with me. It would have been too complicated if you returned to Brazil. It was
better if we all just drew a line.’
It was hard to believe it was that straightforward. Perhaps it was? But Gilberto had made promises to Joel, unspoken if not aloud. The fact that he was a father was a promise in itself.
Joel sat down again. ‘What about the letters?’ he asked. ‘I wrote him dozens of letters.’
‘He read them,’ Angelica said. She put out her cigarette and lit another. ‘If it helps to know that, then he did.’
‘I’m not sure it helps at all, but I’d prefer to know.’
‘He kept them in a box. I threw it out with the rest of his stuff when he died. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have kept them.’
‘What about his letters,’ said Joel. ‘Why didn’t he ever write back?’
‘I made him choose,’ Angelica said, with an apologetic look. ‘That wasn’t really fair of me was it? But I just didn’t want him to have you. It didn’t seem fair when we couldn’t have a child of our own.’
‘There are greater barriers,’ Joel said. ‘Some men move mountains for their children.’
‘I couldn’t have handled it. I knew what he was like, always trying to please everyone – most of all himself. Telling your mother we were nothing, telling me she was history – I could have ridden that merry-go-round for years. So I made him get off.’
‘But he chose,’ said Joel. ‘He looked at the options and he chose.’
Joel wondered what made her want to twist the knife. Hadn’t she got her man? Were there scores to settle with his mother still? Perhaps it was just a sport she loved and there were too few opportunities to play. But he didn’t want to be drawn into a battle. Her machinations were not the point; his dad’s choices were all that mattered. He felt angrier than ever, but knew he couldn’t afford to lose control. Throwing Angelica’s stuff around or pinning her to the wall wasn’t going to yield answers. He refused to blow twenty years of hunting with a tantrum that might give her the perfect excuse to throw him out.