by Rolf Potts
I’d head downstairs where Benedetta the cook would have my breakfast set out, papayas or mangoes she’d just plucked from the trees outside, along with homemade bread, cheese, and tea. Fernanda lived in town so till she arrived I was alone here with Brazilians who understood no English. Deni communicated in a language her friends called Denildese—her mishmash of Portuguese, Italian, and Spanish. Embarrassingly monolingual, I understood none of these but I noticed early on that Deni and I were able to communicate in an odd telepathic way . . . no words required.
After breakfast I’d go upstairs and sit at the desk in my room and write until I heard Deni calling, “Cachy! Almoço está pronto!” Then I’d go downstairs to find the twenty-five-foot-long table on the deck laden with a succulent spread of pork or chicken raised here on the farm and vegetables fresh from the garden. I’d shovel it in as if this were my last meal before being shot at sunrise while my companion chattered on in Denildese and I answered in English. When Fernanda arrived we’d get down to business with the interviewing so I could piece together Deni’s life for the page.
One afternoon I spotted an odd little doll hanging upside-down beneath the stairs to the second floor. It was the figure of a man, with a bottle of cachaça strapped to his back and a tiny cigarette in his mouth. I froze, sensing that this was no mere child’s toy. “Deni . . .” I pointed, “what is this?”
She smiled that infectious grin of hers and said something I couldn’t understand. Fernanda explained: “That’s the magic charm she created to bring you to Brazil to write her story. Like all smokers he desperately wants a cigarette, but she won’t light it until her wish is fulfilled.” Like Catholicism in Italy, Macumba—Brazilian voodoo—is an undercurrent running through the country’s daily life. In São Paulo you can walk down the street and stumble upon a chicken slaughtered at the crossroads on the night of the new moon—the proper time for sacrifices to attain your desires. The larger the desire, the bigger the sacrifice offered to the gods.
After a couple of hours of interviewing each day we’d stop and get down to the serious business of drinking caparinhis in the pool, then move on to my samba lessons—all orchestrated to the sexy rumbling voice of Seu Jorge which had now replaced birdsong as the dominant soundtrack of life at Casinha Branca. Some nights Deni would call Cellino on her cell phone and summon him to drive us into Paraty where we’d join the Europeans drinking beer at one of the beach cafes. Everyone seemed to know Denilda. Her estate was legendary—someplace up there on top of the mountain, the locals knew—though few had been there.
Our routine here at the house was interrupted when we began traveling to see the settings of Deni’s life as research for the book. In this pursuit we ventured into the favelas of Rio, the green mountains of Minas Gerais, and drifted down the Amazon from Belem to Manaus. For our trips by car we had a fourth musketeer who joined our entourage, Arturo, an American who lived in Paraty. Although he’d been in Brazil for years, the 6'4" ex-Marine hadn’t lost any of his Staten Island accent and I’d smile every time he opened his mouth.
When Carnival season arrives all day-to-day business in Brazil ceases like someone’s thrown a circuit breaker. At Cashinha Branca the holiday transformed the estate into a beehive of activity, starting with the arrival of Denilda’s husband, Paolo, a psychiatrist who lives most of the year in Italy. Their bicontinental marriage was an endless source of curiosity for me but I liked Paolo instantly, especially that he spoke some English. Two more visitors came from Italy, along with a German woman we’d met on the Amazon, and for five days we indulged in the type of bacchanalia which has made Brazil famous—everything from dancing in the blocos of Paraty by the light of flaming torches, to watching the parades at the Sambadrome in Rio till 8 a.m., to rolling in the volcanic mud of Jabaquara Beach. But by the end of Carnival I was destroyed, and when the guests left, Deni gave the servants the weekend off. There were long good-byes and kisses on both cheeks—and promises that we would visit the Italians soon to trace Denilda’s past life in Italy; she’d fled there thirty years ago as a refugee after the Death Squads had killed her brother in Rio. When the military dictatorship and her fear of violence ended, Deni had returned to her homeland.
Carnival finished on Friday and on that muggy Saturday night, I bolted my door, climbed naked under the mosquito netting, and finished reading Peter Robb’s Death in Brazil—a true tale of political intrigues that includes a home invasion where the servants conspire in the plot to execute PC Farias. In another incident a Brazilian congressman dealt with one of his enemies by cutting off the victim’s arms and legs with a chainsaw, and hammering nails into his head. I closed the book, turned off the light, and fell into a deep dreamless sleep.
“Cachy! Cachy wake up!” Denilda is screaming in English, punctuated by the splintering sound of knuckles pounding on my door. How long this has been going on I can’t fathom because it’s as if I’m swimming up from the bottom of the ocean trying to regain consciousness. I hear the locked knob rattling. “Cachy!”
Still nude, I open my door just a crack. All the lights are ablaze in the hallway and I see Deni with tears pouring down her black face, then I realize her husband is standing next to her, his large blue eyes open wide but otherwise calm. Somebody must have died, I decide. I try to imagine who.
“Paolo, what’s happening, what’s going on?”
“Cathy, there’s a man in the house and he wants you to come out.”
“What?”
He repeats his line calmly, slowly, in his best psychiatrist’s voice: “There’s a man in the house and he wants you to come out.” While I’m pondering what on earth this can mean, I see a sudden movement in the hall and look up to see a man standing about ten feet behind Paolo, dressed all in black. He wears a black ski mask; underneath it are a ghostly pale face and brown eyes wide with an expression of terror, pupils dilated. His chest is heaving with rapid breaths. He has both arms outstretched holding a Magnum semi-automatic pointed at my head.
My first impulse is to laugh. This is a joke, right? They’ve gotten high and had one of their friends dress up like a robber. It’s a scene we’ve witnessed hundreds of times in films—the costume, the pose—so that it has the illusion of unreality. I glance back at Denilda’s tortured face and my dazed brain realizes this is not a joke.
“O.K., let me get my bathrobe.” I push the door shut, go back into my room and switch on the light to find my robe. It’s a cotton blue pinstripe, purchased especially for the tropical climate of my languid Latin American assignment. I wrap it around me and tie the belt.
Now a voice from inside me starts giving me orders. This instinct had steered me through dire consequences in the past, taking command of the situation. She left no room to argue: Just like in the book—they are going to kill all of you. But if they’re going to shoot you, they’ll have to shoot you in the back. Make a run for it.
With this I walk outside to the balcony facing the front of the house where the hillside falls away to a drop of about twenty feet below. Around the corner of the building is another balcony with a sheer drop between the two. I scramble over to it and as I maneuver over the railings I fight the bathrobe twisting around my trembling legs. Once I land safely on the other balcony I run as far as I can until I reach the end and wait hiding, hoping the man in the ski mask will get what he came for and go away. I have a sickening feeling, however, that what he came for is me.
From some locked vault in my brain drifts up the advice of an article I’d read years ago: If someone tries to kidnap you, don’t go with them thinking you’ll escape later. Make your stand right there. I am now fully awake and realizing the circumstances, all evidence pointing to the fact that this is an inside job, someone who knows the layout of the place. Someone who knows that Benedetta and her husband wouldn’t be sleeping downstairs in their little twin bed tonight. When I see the black ski mask peer around the side of the house looking for me I know the time for debating my course of action is over. I’d rather ri
sk breaking my neck than be taken hostage, so I shinny down from the balcony and begin to run.
I have no idea how many men are with the intruder or if they have a lookout or if they will soon stand on the balcony and shoot at the pale blue bathrobe streaking down the mountain road. Certainly there is no one around to hear the gunfire. I reach the large steel gate that Deni closes across the road at night. I try to open it but a chain with a padlock prevents that. In my happy-go-lucky existence here I have never pondered the need for these security measures. Moving to the side of the gate I realize I will have to climb over the barbed wire fence which comes up above my waist—which will be quite the challenge barefoot in my robe. The possibility to do real damage to myself flits through my mind, straddling the barbed wire and having it rip into my genitals. I manage to get over it without injury, and run down the road to the caretaker’s house where I knock softly.
Cellino opens the door a crack and I can see that he is standing there nude with a small hand towel covering his private parts. “Let me in,” I hiss.
“Por Cachy?” Only later do I think about how absurd all this must seem to him, a woman in a bathrobe showing up at his door in the middle of the night demanding to be let in. But at the time I was not interested in propriety. I press my way in and try to explain what’s happening.
“Homens com . . .” here I pause because I have no idea what the word for gun is in Portuguese. “Homens com guns at Casinha Branca.” I take my finger and point, thumb up, to my head. “Deni and Paolo.” I’m anticipating he’ll leap into action to rescue his black mother. Instead he collapses onto a sofa; the little towel draped across his groin slips to the floor, and he goes into a trance. Then he begins softly whimpering and shaking his head as tears stream down his cheeks.
Across the room his young blond wife wears a black slip; she’s watching this scene intently but does not speak. “Cellino, chame a polícia!” I cry. I take a hold of both his sweaty shoulders and begin to shake him—trying to snap him out of it—but he continues in his trance, making little noises like a mewling kitten. The thought pops into my head to slap this man as hard as I can like I’ve seen in the movies. Perhaps the wife senses this is what I’m ready to do, understands in that way of women when physical danger is imminent.
“Cachy!” she calls out and holds up a Blackberry and begins to dial. As the woman thumbs the buttons of her phone I turn loose of her husband and for the first time look around. Their tiny house consists solely of that one room which is modestly furnished except for a lavish big screen TV. They must have been watching a movie when I arrived because now I stare at the screen where a man is charging in and assuming the all-too-familiar stance: both arms rigid pointing a handgun straight into the camera—straight at me. I grab the remote and turn it off.
“What is happening?” I demand of the wife who is still punching buttons on her Blackberry. How many digits to dial the cops in this place? Is she calling Uranus?
She holds the phone out toward me and shrugs, indicating that it won’t work.
“We need to get dressed.”
“¿Por?” she frowns at me like I’m making an unreasonable and ridiculous demand.
“Do you have some clothes I can wear?” She gives me a long-suffering look and shrugs again, then walks over to her closet where she slides one item at a time down the rod studying her wardrobe. At last she hands me a hangar sporting a red sequin party dress. For a few seconds I stare at her, my gaze going back and forth from her emotionless face to the garment extended to me—no doubt her best dress. “No. Pantalones. Sapatos.” At this moment the voice starts talking to me again: These people are idiots and you are going to have to leave them and save yourself. You’ve got to take charge of this situation. I push the petite blonde out of the way and grab some gym shorts and a tank top, both of which are about three sizes too small. Then I stick my feet into her tiny flip-flops.
I turn my attention back to Cellino now who has a cell phone of his own, the one I’ve seen him talk on dozens of times. He’s put on some shorts and a t-shirt and is finally trying to dial someone, but indicating the call won’t go through. In some of my travels in the past I’d experienced situations where the signal was too weak for a phone call but would transmit a text. “Text Arturo and tell him to go the police.” Cellino nods and begins punching the buttons of his phone. We wait, but there’s no reply.
The minutes drag on with both husband and wife trying to dial out but nothing happens. Then suddenly Cellino’s cell phone rings and he stares at it. “Denilda!” He says something in Portuguese which I take to mean: “Should I answer it?” I nod thinking this is the stupid question of the century. He puts the phone to his ear then shrugs as if to say no one was there.
At this point I freeze. For a half hour these two have been claiming they can’t get a signal to call the police and now Cellino’s phone rings, so clearly it’s working. For the first time the horrible thought occurs to me: Maybe they’re in on it. No one in the world knows where you are right now . . . they can kill you and drag you out into the jungle and in a couple of days those vultures will have devoured you. You’ll be gone without a trace.
I point back and forth between Cellino and myself. “You and I, moto para polícia.” I pantomime holding onto the handlebars of his dirt bike and turning the throttle.
He shakes his head emphatically. “Ah não.”
“That or I will walk,” and here I wiggle my index and middle finger back and forth to mimic walking. Really? Are you going to hike miles down this mountain on a new moon night—through the streams and waterfalls and snakes and masked bandits? In a pair of flip-flops? The voice of survival is fierce, and she has guided me through many a crisis in the past. This time though I answer her: If I don’t, those guys are going to kill Deni and Paolo then I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life.
Before this debate can go any further we hear shouting outside. Cellino motions for us to stay put while he investigates. The wife and I lock the door behind him and I press against it, my heart thudding inside my ribs. Then he calls for us to come out. I fling the door open and immediately a flashlight is in my face, blinding me. I see the outline of a man holding an assault rifle and there are other figures in the dark around him. You walked into their trap and you’re not going to escape this time. It’s over.
“Are you O.K.?” says a deep resonate male voice in English.
“Yes, I’m O.K.,” I reply weakly. He takes the flashlight away from my face and as my eyes adjust to the dark I scan his clothes: camo fatigues with no insignia, no badges. Are these the good guys or the bad guys? I have no idea. But he’s movie star handsome and in that moment I fall in love with him in a way that’s absolutely primal. That swooning when the Mounties rush in is not just for the melodramas. I later learn that my rescuer’s name is Juliano from the Paraty police.
“Good. We have to go up to the big house now and see what’s happening up there.” He turns away with a look of resignation that I will not forget in this lifetime—it said: “I may die in a few moments.” Now the nausea overtakes me, imagining Denilda and Paolo lying in a pool of blood. As the three men move away the last one in line runs his eyes over me, my breasts bulging out of the doll-sized tank top and several inches of bare ass hanging out of the shorts.
In a few minutes Deni and Paolo come running down the mountain—very much alive—and we run into each other’s arms to lock in a group hug. The intruders had shut them in the laundry room then quickly cleaned out the house of cash and computers. They took all my electronics, stowing them in a sack before running off into the jungle. We later learned that from their camp they’d been watching us with binoculars as we danced around the pool and drank caparinhis . . . waiting for their moment. The police believed that one of their motives was to kidnap the “famous American writer”—a popular money-making activity in South America amongst the criminal class. Listen up, illiterate kidnappers: “famous American writer” does not necessarily eq
ual “rich American writer.”
Later I learned that my computer was recovered from Cellino’s uncle’s house; Deni mailed it back to me in California. The caretaker resigned shortly after the robbery and moved away. While Cellino was never arrested to my knowledge, the man in the ski mask was shot and killed by law enforcement during another hold up.
And yet the caretaker really did text Arturo—one of the many unsolved riddles surrounding this whole story. Arturo received the text and went straight to the police station where he informed them: “There are robbers up at Casinha Branca.”
“If they made it all the way up there then this is going to be a fucked-up job,” they said as they began grabbing automatic weapons off the rack and slamming in ammo clips. While they put on bulletproof vests they said to our driver, “You’ve got to go up there with us because we don’t know how to get there.”
“I can go, but give me a weapon. I was a U.S. Marine in Afghanistan.”
With that they set off in a car, which promptly got stuck on the awful road. They abandoned it and hiked the rest of the way up, stopping at Cellino’s house first.
The next morning after the gunmen invaded Casinha Branca, I tell Denilda: “You have two choices. Either we go to Italy and finish the book there, or I get on the first plane back to the States and that’s the end of this project.”
With that the entire entourage packs up and heads to Milan, where we begin tracing Deni’s wild life throughout Italy; I stay on alone when she returns to Brazil. Sleeping on a friend’s couch in Rome, I lie awake each endless evening reliving the whole incident, trying to sort out the mystery of it all. A recurring thought nags: Why couldn’t I see anything when I was trying to jump off the balcony. It was so dark. . . .