Brazil

by Errol Lincoln Uys

  Celso Cavalcanti was one of the Church’s few and foremost advocates of active charity — not to one orphan alone but to the masses of Brazil’s underprivileged. To many, Celso was becoming, in the classic sense, a meddlesome priest. His conservative foes of the cloth were distressed that a priest of superior intelligence and from one of the noblest families of Pernambuco should lose himself among the mocambos and other hovels of the lower classes.

  On this December afternoon as he rode the Great Western with Juraci, Celso’s thoughts were not on the problems of his ministry but on his family, who were coming together at Santo Tomás for the Christmas season. Since his transfer to Recife from the Bahia, Celso had attended several such gatherings, the great clan of Cavalcantis traveling from afar to the valley where seventy-three-year-old Rodrigo Alves Cavalcanti presided over the Casa Grande. Rodrigo was an unrepentant monarchist who ordered black drapes hung around the huge painting of Dom Pedro Segundo on each anniversary of the emperor’s death. Rodrigo regarded the republic as a farce created for the amusement of common people, and he showed acute displeasure when anyone forgot to address him as “Barão.” This despite the fact that his oldest son, Duarte, who ran Usina Jacuribe, was one of those who had quickly gone over to the republicans. Now forty-nine, Duarte was a national deputy, a fact the barão accepted as a mere convenience until sanity triumphed and the Crown was restored.

  Dr. Fábio Cavalcanti still had a thriving practice in Boa Vista. He was also a director of Recife’s public health services, which, after making advances thirty years ago, had again deteriorated; epidemics broke out intermittently, especially among the fetid mocambos, where half the city’s residents lived.

  Celso was grateful to Fábio and to his Aunt Renata for their interest in Juraci Cristiano, whom they had first learned about from Celso on his occasional visits to Recife before his transfer to the diocese. One night almost a year ago, when he had gone to their house near the Passagem do Madalena, he’d met a visitor who showed great interest when Celso talked about Juraci and his father, Antônio Paciência, a mulatto killed at Canudos.

  “Antônio Paciência? A tall man? Dark-skinned, almost like a prêto?” the visitor had asked.

  “That’s how I saw him.”

  “Oh, my dear Jesus! I knew him, Celso. We fought together, Antônio Paciência and I, in Paraguay.”

  It was Henrique Inglez, alias Agamemnon Andrade de Melo, still occasionally seen on the boards of the Teatro Santa Isabela. Henrique Inglez, with whom Celso had served in the Termite Club, helping runaway slaves. Senhor “Agamemnon Andrade de Melo” was a widower now, and there had been other changes in his life: Turning his back on Recife’s thirty thousand prostitutes, he was enjoying a discreet affair with the son of a prominent senhor de engenho.

  “Killed with the fanatics at Canudos? I can’t believe it.”

  “It’s true, Henrique.”

  Henrique had studied the elaborate rings on his fingers as he told Antônio Paciência’s story, remembering how he and his comrades had plucked rings and other loot from the dead in Paraguay but saying nothing of this. “We came back together with the Fifty-third Voluntários. I never saw him again, after he went to find his mother. Ai, the poor man was so proud of the freedom he’d won. It wasn’t fair — to die like an unwanted dog in the sertão!”

  That night after Henrique left, Fábio had offered whatever help Juraci Cristiano needed. Later, at Celso’s suggestion, Fábio had paid for Juraci’s admission to the Marists’ school. They had both worried about how the boy would fit in at the school, which was attended mostly by the sons of the rich. The past year had been difficult for Juraci. Brother Rodolphe had once contacted Celso, deeply disturbed by a lie the boy had been telling that his father, Pai Antônio, had been the chief of a town in the sertão, a powerful coronel whom everyone had to obey. Brother Rodolphe had wanted Celso himself to suggest a suitable punishment. “Do nothing,” Celso had said. “The boy is telling the truth.” Brother Rodolphe, who had come to Brazil after the rebellion, reminded Celso that Canudos had been the mecca of dangerous fanatics. “They were also Brazilians,” Celso had said, walking away from him.

  At 2:00 P.M., the train from Recife reached Jacuribe Norte. Celso and the boy were met by a carriage sent from Santo Tomás, and took the road into the two valleys following the narrow-gauge railway to Usina Jacuribe. Long before they reached the factory, the air reeked of sugarcane. Twenty years after the inauguration of the usina, a small village had grown up around it, with houses for the mill workers and their families and barracks for itinerant cane cutters.

  As they rode in the open carriage, passing between the usina buildings, Celso explained the mill operation to Juraci, making the driver stop at the main building and taking the boy inside to show him the huge crushers. Juraci stood there open-mouthed, keeping close to the padre, for the noise in the cavernous building frightened him.

  “Well, my inventor of aêrodromos, what do you think of this machine?” Celso asked when they stepped outside.

  Juraci looked at the hillocks of cane in the mill yard. “All this will be crushed?”

  “Everything you see and many, many tons more.”

  “There will be a mountain of sugar!”

  “More sugar, Juraci, than you could ever imagine. Mountains of it, yes!”

  They left the usina, the carriage rattling over the wooden bridge across the Rio Jacuribe. Celso could not pass this way without remembering how Slipper George and he had hidden below the bridge when Duarte Cavalcanti came looking for the runaways from Santo Tomás. Duarte had subsequently learned of Celso’s involvement with the Termite Club, but had not said a word to their father; Celso himself had not confessed his part in the flight of the slaves, for even though so many years had passed, Rodrigo Cavalcanti would still be unforgiving.

  Across the bridge on a hillside a mile from the river, a new house was being built for Duarte and Joaquina Nogueira, whom he had married six years ago after his first wife died. Duarte wanted to be closer to the usina, the Casa Grande being eight miles away; and besides, the mansion that had been home to six generations of this Cavalcanti clan over more than a century and a half was showing its age, with ever more effort needed to maintain it.

  Across the Rio Jacuribe, the carriage road lay between endless blocks of cane. The Cavalcantis now possessed more fields than ever before; the usina had enabled them to consolidate their holdings at Santo Tomás and in this adjoining valley and to dominate areas beyond, forcing other senhores de engenho to sell up or become furnishers of cane to the factory. The old paternal relationship with the agregados was also breaking down; many squatters were gone from the valley, their houses demolished, their land given over to cane.

  Several times, the carriage driver pulled aside to allow carts hauling cane to the usina railway to pass. Drawn by teams of white Zebu, these were not the only reminder of the past: Armed capangas sat half asleep in their saddles while overseeing the gangs of cane cutters. Reaching the valley of Santo Tomás, the carriage rattled past the old senzala, now occupied by former slaves and migrant workers with their families. Both here and at the engenho, which had been adapted for milling manioc, groups of women called out a blessing for the padre.

  At last the Casa Grande came into view on the hill, flanked by royal palms and tamarinds. Dark shades softened the deteriorating whitewash and cast long shadows across the veranda and the patio in front of the chapel of Santo Tomás. Celso felt a surge of emotion. No matter where they went — Celso to the hell of Canudos, Fábio to Paraguay, Rodrigo to France — always they returned, even if only for a family gathering, with a sense of reverence for this old house, noble and triumphant amid a sea of green and gold.

  Fábio and Renata were outside to welcome the carriage. White-haired, thin and stoop-shouldered, and wearing spectacles, Fábio looked all of his sixty-nine years. To this day, he labored long hours at his Boa Vista clinic and with the health authorities of Recife. His beloved Renata, sixty now, was even
more beautiful, a look of strength, of independence, enhancing her lovely features.

  As Celso embraced his uncle, Juraci Cristiano stood by the carriage, his hands clenched in front of him. “Juraci, say hello to Dr. Fábio and Aunt Renata.”

  Juraci came forward nervously. “Boa tarde, Senhor Doutor.”

  Fábio ruffled Juraci’s hair. “Welcome to Santo Tomás, my boy.”

  Juraci greeted the senhora. Then he looked down, concentrating on his dusty shoes as Dr. Fábio and the padre began mounting the steps to the veranda.

  Rodrigo Cavalcanti came to the front door then, and Celso raced up the remaining steps to hug his father. They spoke for a few moments before Rodrigo called out, “Boy! Come here! Let me see you!” Rodrigo knew about the orphan Celso had been taking care of, but this was his first meeting with Juraci Cristiano.

  Juraci approached Rodrigo Cavalcanti on weak legs. The senhor barão was old, with huge silver whiskers and thinning hair on the top of his head. He was much bigger than Dr. Fábio, his brother.

  “Padre Celso has brought you to stay over Christmas.”

  “Yes, Senhor Barão. Thank you Senhor Barão.” Juraci twisted his fingers together.

  “The padre tells me you’re a good boy.”

  Again, Juraci gazed down at his shoes. “I’ll be good, Senhor Barão. I promise.”

  Rodrigo put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Come, Juraci Cristiano, let’s go into the house.”

  Celso Cavalcanti hung back as the others entered, watching his father lead Juraci across the threshold of the Casa Grande. Celso saw the senhor barão come to a halt in front of the painting of Emperor Pedro, with his hand still on the boy’s shoulder, the two of them gazing up at His Majesty.

  Dear God, to think of this boy so nearly lost in the ruins of Canudos!

  How often Celso had heard others speak of a better tomorrow — of Brazil, a land of the future. My God in Heaven, our Brazil is a blessed land, he thought. Pedro Álvares Cabral had sailed off course in 1500 and found a paradise, with a bounty to offer mankind. And yet, after all these centuries, the greatest resource, the real wealth, of the nation remained neglected: her people.

  Celso knew that this was only one child, but he took great joy in imagining that others like Juraci Cristiano, now and in times to come, would find the opportunity to flourish in Brazil. The land of the future. Their land.

  THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO BRAZIL - THE BRAZILIANS

  EPILOGUE: The Candangos

  XXII

  April 1956 - April 1960

  Amílcar Pinto da Silva watched the twin-engine Beechcraft approach the Rio Tietê from the southeast. The plane banked and turned as it crossed the river, passing directly over the Place of White Stones, heading for Itatinga’s landing field.

  Amílcar da Silva, sixty-six, was a son of Aristides Tavares. A big, sallow-faced man with deep-set eyes and a receding hairline, he gave off a relaxed, confident air, which his clothes reflected: loose-fitting beige shirt and khaki trousers, beige cardigan sweater with elbow patches, and an old pair of black shoes. Just visible at his open collar — and suggesting his enormous wealth — was an elaborate antique chain supporting a four-inch-long gold Cross.

  It was April 19, 1956, and Senhor Amílcar was in the gardens behind the house. As he started back to the mansion, his eye caught a flash of scarlet and he changed direction.

  “Pedro! Paulina!” he called out to two great macaws basking in the morning sun.

  Pedro nodded his head and blushed with excitement — a characteristic of the male of the species that amused Amílcar — while Paulina ignored him. He had bought them at a São Paulo pet store a while back; but Dona Cora da Silva, disturbed by their screechings and their scattering of seeds and excrement across the veranda of the da Silvas’ town house on the Avenida Paulista in the capital, had banished the birds to Itatinga.

  Senhor Amílcar and Dona Cora, his second wife — a handsome woman of thirty-five — spent two months every year at the fazenda, usually arriving at the beginning of the harvest in April. Four million trees now flourished in the terra roxa of the hill country behind the Rio Tietê. More than 2,500 people lived here in seven colonies, each a small village in itself. The majority of Itatinga’s laborers were native-born peasants, many of whom had fled the dust devils of the Northeast; but the work force also included second-and third-generation Italians and a small number of Japanese.

  Senhor Amílcar left the macaws and entered the mansion through the French doors to the main reception room. Here were possessions that had been in the da Silva family for generations, among them a two-centuries-old jacaranda table; a love seat that belonged to Baronesa Teodora Rita; a four-foot-high candelabrum said to have come down from Benedito Bueno himself, a reward to the captain of the monsoons from a Portuguese fidalgo grateful for being transported safely to Cuiabá.

  Of the portraits on the walls, most arresting were those of the white-haired Ulisses Tavares in the blue-and-gold uniform of the first empire; handsome Firmino Dantas, wearing a melancholy expression; Aristides Tavares in middle age, the set of his mouth revealing the aggressiveness with which he had expanded the family fortune.

  Twenty minutes after the arrival of the plane, Senhor Amílcar greeted his son Roberto, thirty-six, and Raul Andracchio, who worked at the headquarters of the da Silva enterprises and frequently copiloted the Beechcraft with Roberto. Besides the coffee fazenda, the da Silvas either fully owned or held a major interest in twenty-four São Paulo-based companies, including textile and clothing factories, an iron foundry, and a construction firm. Three cattle ranches in Mato Grosso also belonged to the da Silvas, as did a small shipping fleet.

  “So, Pai, Juscelino has done it!” Roberto da Silva exclaimed, moments after embracing his father. “He’s gone and told Congress Brazil is to have a new capital.” Amílcar shook his head. “I heard it on the radio last night,” he said. “There was talk, too, of a new pharaoh in Brazil.”

  Roberto laughed. Like his father, he had a tawny cast to his skin, dark eyes, and a robust, rugged physique, in the manner of so many of his bandeirante ancestors. The similarity ended at his jet black hair combed straight back, accentuating a high, broad forehead, and his small, thin mustache.

  “A capital in the sertão?” Amílcar snorted. “Utter nonsense! Always has been.” At his son’s puzzled expression, Amílcar explained, “Listen, my son, Kubitschek is not the first to come up with this crazy idea.”

  As far back as 1822, the year Brazil made her break with Portugal, the empire’s founders had talked of moving the capital from Rio de Janeiro inland, “Brasília” being one of the names suggested for the new city. In 1891, the year Antônio Conselheiro led the faithful to the New Jerusalem at Canudos, a small government expedition marched into Goiás seeking a site for the capital, and the area recommended in their commission’s report lay within the location finally chosen six decades later.

  In 1955, following the most honest and orderly election since the establishment of the republic, commitment to the “cause” of a new capital was voiced by Brazil’s new president, Juscelino Kubitschek: “Someone must dare to start this enterprise,” Kubitschek had declared during his campaign. “I’ll do it!” — This turned out to be no idle promise. The poor boy from Diamantina, who had put himself through medical school and completed the arduous if unlikely journey from surgeon to presidential nominee, was now embarked upon his most visionary project.

  Amílcar, Roberto, and Raul were still discussing it over lunch:

  “Dreamers, all of them!” Amílcar declared. “A city built on nothing, rising out of nothing

  . . .”

  The day before at Anapolis, five hundred miles north of São Paulo, Dr. Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira had signed a proposal to build a new capital within a federal district comprising 5,814 square kilometers in Goiás, on the high central plateau of Brazil.

  “You’re right, Pai, Brasília has long been a dream — ”

  “Another
El Dorado,” Amílcar interjected.

  “No, Pai — a new beacon for Brazil,” Roberto responded fervently.

  “What a grand slogan!” Amílcar said, winking at Raul and Dona Cora, who had joined them at the table. “Juscelino couldn’t do better. If our Roberto here ever tires of building things, as Brazil was built, not dreamed, I see a promising career for him in politics.”

  Roberto was undaunted: “Yes — a beacon, Pai.” He picked up a saltcellar and dramatically placed it in front of him on the table. “Brasília!” he announced. He drew a line from it across the cloth with a fingernail. “Rio, six hundred miles southeast.” Then he drew five more lines radiating from the saltcellar in different directions, and cited the approximate distances to outlying cities and frontier towns he had designated with pieces of cutlery: Salvador, Belém do Pará, Boa Vista, Rio Branco, Porto Alegre.

  Amílcar studied his firstborn son with pride, though they sometimes disagreed, as on just such issues as this one of Brasília. His other son, Lourimar, a lawyer, also worked for the family corporation, but he had neither the intensity of involvement nor the reckless daring of Roberto, who, trained as a civil engineer both in São Paulo and at Cornell University in the United States, today headed the da Silvas’ construction company.

  There had been a time, though, when Senhor Amílcar worried about the boy’s ever settling down, for Roberto had been and still was obsessed with flying. As a very young child, he had been as fascinated with airborne machines as little Juraci Cristiano with Santos Dumont’s aêrodromos. Roberto was only fifteen when he first took off alone from a dirt strip outside Tiberica. In February 1944, after his return from the United States, he had volunteered for the Brazilian Air Force. In October of that year, Roberto and four hundred men of the First Pursuit Group sailed for Europe, where they joined the U.S. 350th Fighter Group.