Sebastien sat in the chair at the dressing table and opened the watch case.
“All of these watches,” he commented. “One for every day of the week.”
“Your uncle admired good watches. He acquired them, when he traveled, and he often gave them to his friends and business associates, as gifts. If you will permit me—” Estevao leaned over Sebastien’s shoulder and indicated one of the watches. “This is the one he usually wore. It is plainer than some of the others, suitable for everyday wear. Perhaps you would like to wear it?”
Sebastien picked up the watch and looked at it more closely.
“Estevao, this is a vintage Ulysse Nardin watch!”
“Is that a good brand of watch? It keeps perfect time.”
Sebastien slipped on the watch, which he knew must be worth several thousand dollars. It felt a little heavy on his left wrist, but it looked impressive. He tried the lid of the other box. It opened. The key had not been turned in the lock. The box was a man’s jewelry chest, the kind in which an array of drawers and bins opened and unfolded automatically, to display their contents, when the lid was raised. There were cuff links, tie pins and tie clips, men’s rings and bracelets and neck chains—all with a certain retro look to them, and all obviously expensive. Sebastien picked up and opened a small flat leather case. Inside, nestled in depressions in the blue velvet inner lining, was a matched set of cuff links, shirt studs, tie pin, and—unusually, for such a set of men’s jewelry—a bracelet and a pair of screw-in ear studs. All of the items were gold, with brilliant green jewels set in them.
“Are these real? Real gemstones, I mean?”
“Those are Colombian emeralds. Your uncle bought that set in an antique shop, he told me, many years ago, when he first came to Brazil. It once belonged to a wealthy landowner. It was made for him by a jeweler in Rio de Janiero.”
“I know that my uncle was a sailor,” Sebastien joked, “but I don’t recall him having pierced ears.”
“He did not, senhor. Although many of the men here do. I myself, as you see. Your uncle never wore the ear studs.”
Sebastien picked up the bracelet. It was a chain with massive rectangular gold links, with an emerald mounted in the center of each link. The dressing room, of course, was well equipped with lamps, but Sebastien hadn’t bothered to switch any of them on. The little green stones flashed, even in the soft indirect natural light that penetrated into the dressing room from the bedroom.
Sebastien put the bracelet around his right wrist. “Wow!” he exclaimed. “I really like this. Do you think it would be vulgar to wear it during the daytime?”
“It is meant to be worn. It seems a shame to leave it inside the box. Why don’t you try on one of the earrings, as well?” Estevao had noticed that Sebastien had only his left earlobe pierced.
“Okay.” Sebastien removed the simple gold hoop from his earlobe, and with Estevao’s help, replaced it with one of the emerald studs. He studied the effect in the mirror and gave his hair a much-needed swipe with the brush.
“I don’t look too bad, do I?” he asked. “With the earring, I mean?”
“It suits your coloring. You look very handsome, mestre.”
“I think I’ll keep it in, at least for the time being,” Sebastien decided. “And this way, I’ll have a spare,” he added, with a little laugh, as he stood up. “Lead me to wherever lunch is going to be served, Estevao. I’m starved.”
They retraced the route they had taken earlier, although this time Estevao led Sebastien across the other side of the vestibule. In due course, Sebastien found himself standing in a formal dining room, with huge landscape paintings on its walls, above massive sideboards—and, occupying the center of the rectangular space, under another row of three sluggishly revolving ceiling fans—a long table, which was another astonishing example of woodcarving art. The faces of chubby-cheeked, winged cherubs topped each of the gracefully arching legs. There was an upholstered chair at either end of the table—and no fewer than eight matching chairs along either side.
“My God,” Sebastien blurted out.
“Is something wrong, senhor?”
“Oh no, Estevao, nothing at all. It’s just a good deal grander than I had expected. Dinner for eighteen, I see. I’m glad I’m wearing a decent watch, and the jewelry,” Sebastien quipped.
There was in fact only a single place set, at the head of the table. Much farther down, in the exact center of the table, was a monstrosity of a centerpiece—a sculpture, at least three feet tall, in some sort of metal covered with aged and tarnished silver gilt. Three tritons, with fish tails and brawny bare torsos, rose from the turbulent waves which broke against rocks in a little sea. One triton was blowing lustily on a conch shell horn. The second was holding up a candelabra. The third was using his powerfully muscled arms to hoist up a bare-breasted, long-haired mermaid, who in turn was holding above her head a shell-shaped dish. There were no candles in the candelabra, but the dish was laden with a tempting assortment of fruit—oranges, bananas, grapes.
“That’s some fruit dish,” Sebastien commented.
“It is another thing your uncle acquired in his travels. He found it amusing. He called it ‘kitschy.’” As he spoke, Estevao pulled back the chair at the head of the table so that Sebastien could sit down.
“Have you already had your lunch, Estevao?”
“I will have it later, in the kitchen.”
“Nonsense. You must join me. We can continue our talk.”
Estevao looked hesitant. “If you wish—”
“Surely my uncle didn’t always eat like this, all by himself?”
“He often asked me to join him, when there were no guests.”
“Then you will join me now.” A smiling Ignacia had appeared, followed by one of the maids. Both women carried heavily loaded trays. “Ignacia,” Sebastien said as she began to transfer serving dishes from her tray to the table. “Set another place, for Estevao, please.”
“At once, senhor,” she replied, making a little curtsey.
“I can see that there’s enough food here for more than two people,” Sebastien observed. “And it all looks and smells wonderful.”
Ignacia blushed like a schoolgirl. “I hope you will find everything to your satisfaction, senhor.”
“I’m sure I will.”
As soon as Estevao was seated to his right, with his own place setting in front of him, Sebastien dug in, without ceremony—although he noticed that Estevao moved his lips in a quick silent prayer, then crossed himself and kissed his thumb, before he picked up his fork.
Ignacia had prepared what Sebastien recognized as a feijoada completa, a luncheon spread that was a more lavish version of what was considered Brazil’s national dish—one that had its humble origins back in colonial days, in the kitchens of the country’s slave quarters. There, the slaves had transformed the leftovers from their masters’ tables into their own improvised meals, making ingenious use of whatever other food items were readily available. The basis was the feijoada itself, a black bean stew containing more than one kind of meat—in this case, pork sausage, bacon, and sun-dried beef. The pot containing the stew was surrounded, on the table in front of Sebastien, by the side dishes—rice, sautéed kale, slices of orange and pineapple, and salgados, deep-fried pastries stuffed with cheese and meat. There were little individual-sized loaves of fresh-baked bread, presented wrapped in napkins in baskets. The beverages were ice water, and the traditional accompaniment to the feijoada—batida de limão, the sugar-cane liquor flavored with lime and served over ice shavings, with which Sebastien had already become familiar back in Belém.
Sebastien shamelessly gorged himself on the salgados and the stew, and tore the little loaves of bread apart so that he could use them to wipe up the residue of the stew from his plate. There was nothing wrong with Estevao’s appetite, either, he noticed, and the Brazilian obviously enjoyed his batida de limão, too.
“I’d love to have one of those bananas, and an oran
ge,” Sebastien said, eyeing the distant centerpiece, “but I’m not sure I’m up to the long trip.”
Estevao smiled, and rose from his chair. “I will get them for you, senhor.”
He brought back fruit for both of them, and they ate it in silence.
When they had finished, Sebastien consulted the Ulysse Nardin watch, which he was already getting used to having on his wrist.
“I think I would like to look around the house for a while—by myself. I don’t think I’ll need you anymore, Estevao, for the time being. Why don’t you run along and, ah, do whatever it is you do in your leisure time?”
“Very good, senhor. I will come to you when it is time for you to get ready for dinner.”
“Don’t forget that we are going to have three guests.”
“I am not in the habit of overlooking such things, senhor Sebastien,” Estevao said—just a bit haughtily. The subtext? Therefore there is no need to remind me.
“I’m sure you aren’t. I just want to make sure that they continue to feel at home here in the house, the way I’m sure they did when my uncle was alive.”
Sebastien suppressed a smile as Estevao left the dining room, and he finally found himself experiencing a modicum of privacy.
He wandered, at random, encountering no one except two of the maids, who were dusting in what Sebastien assumed was the so-called drawing room, an elegant but comfortable salon, with sofas and chairs upholstered in a faded brocade. They interrupted their work to give him the usual little half-curtsey. He exchanged a few pleasantries with them, in Portuguese, then moved on. The adjoining so-called smoking room was a more masculine version of the drawing room, with woodwork and upholstery in darker tones. The only indication of smoking, past or present, was the presence of a mahogany humidor and a matching cigarette box, and two sets of ashtrays and lighters, all set out on a low table in the middle of the room. But there were no cigars in the humidor and no cigarettes in the box. The ashtrays and lighter sets were both of heavy frosted Venetian glass, one silvery white, the other dark blue with gold flecks. When Sebastien picked up the blue lighter, he saw that it contained no lighter fluid. The accessories seemed to be relics from a bygone era, when smoking was more common.
He made his way first to the game room, then to the library. These were the first rooms in the house that contained any real hints of the previous occupant’s life before he had come to Brazil—specifically, that Tio Gil had been a yachting enthusiast, and a world traveler. Here, in these rooms, the paintings and other art objects tended to have nautical themes. There were ship models, and photos of a young and smiling Tio Gil posing informally with his crews. His sailing trophies, mostly engraved cups, were displayed in a long row on a shelf in the game room.
The library had a slightly more personal atmosphere, and showed signs of having been a man’s refuge. It was very quiet in this part of the house, even now, in the middle of the afternoon. Sebastien imagined it must be just as quiet at night. The oriental carpet and the window drapes here were faded and well worn, and one of the leather upholstered armchairs and its tufted ottoman looked as though it had seen more frequent use than any of the others. Some of the seams in the chair, in fact, had split. Here, too, was further evidence of his uncle’s rather peculiar taste in interior decoration—set between a pair of large and valuable-looking Chinese vases in blue and white porcelain was another kitschy piece of oversized sculpture. In this case, it was a Black Forest wood carving, depicting a hunter, carrying a rifle and accompanied by his alert-looking dog. The hunter was inspecting—with smug satisfaction on his bearded face—the carcass of a stag, which he’d presumably just shot. The dead stag, its head lolling, its legs splayed and limp, was draped over an outcropping of rocks, littered with pine cones. Upon closer inspection, Sebastien saw that this horror was actually a clock, with its face embedded in one of the wooden rocks.
On a table beside the frayed armchair was an elaborate shortwave radio. Judging by the titles of some magazines that were also on the table—they were intended for shortwave enthusiasts—Sebastien assumed that listening to the broadcasts must have been one of his uncle’s favored leisure-time activities.
There was a substantial-looking audio system on one of the nearby bookshelves, along with a respectable collection of compact discs—everything from classical music and jazz to international pop, including some Brazilian performers whose names Sebastien was unfamiliar with.
Sebastien turned his attention to the bookcases. The books, in both English and Portuguese, tended to be at least a couple of decades old, and they were an eclectic mixture. Titles such as The Tyrrhenian Sea: A Sailing Guide to its Coasts and Islands rubbed shoulders, or more accurately, rubbed bindings, with titles such as Fauna E Flora Brasileiras and a whole library-within-a-library of animal husbandry and veterinary texts—Progressive Cattle Raising, Diseases of Cattle in the Tropics, Bovine Laminitis and Lameness, Factors Influencing Fertility in the Post-Partum Cow, and so forth. Sebastien idly wondered whether cows were subject to post-partum depression.
He pulled The Tyrrhenian Sea off the shelf and sat down in the worn armchair to browse through it. Sections of the text were underlined, and the margins contained penciled notes, in his uncle’s handwriting. The book had obviously been used as a reference work and informal journal during an actual sail around that part of the Mediterranean. Sebastien learned, among other things, that a place called Arbatax was “a suitable night anchorage for a yacht en route from one end of Sardinia to the other.” In the author’s opinion, it had “an adequate harbor situated in an attractive bay, but the adjoining village offers few diversions for the overnight visitor.” To which Tio Gil had added, in the margin, an emphatic No kidding!!!
Sebastien turned the pages of the book, paying more attention to the maps, diagrams, and illustrations—and to his uncle’s annotations—than to the text. He began to feel relaxed, to the point of near-drowsiness. This climate seemed conducive to napping.
The French windows in this room were ajar, and a warm, dry breeze was flowing through them, stirring the draperies, and penetrating far into the interior. Otherwise, it was so quiet that Sebastien could hear the faint hum of the ceiling fan’s motor.
Belatedly, Sebastien realized that his uncle, a multi-millionaire who chose to live in a tropical country, had lived in a house with no air conditioning. The ubiquitous ceiling fans seemed to do a tolerable job—so far! But the house was undeniably warm. Sebastien supposed he would become acclimated, gradually.
Estevao appeared in the doorway.
“Pardon me, senhor Sebastien, but it is perhaps time for you to get ready for dinner.”
“Is it? Already? I lost track of the time. Thank you, Estevao.”
The light coming through the library windows now had a peculiarly intense orange-gold glow. The sun must indeed be dipping toward the horizon. From the distance, Sebastien heard male voices, raised in shouts and laughter.
“What’s going on out there?” he asked.
“Some of the men like to play futebol on the lawn for an hour or so, when they are done with their work for the day,” Estevao explained, using the Portuguese word for soccer. “They play on the lawn because the grass is kept cut short there. If they are disturbing you—”
“Not at all. It’s good to hear some signs of life. I was beginning to think this place is almost too quiet.”
They left the library and began the walk—the long walk, it seemed to Sebastien—to the master bedroom.
“What do you think of the house, senhor?” Estevao asked, as though he’d read Sebastien thoughts.
“It’s very large, for only one person. And quiet, as I said.”
“But your uncle frequently entertained guests. Sometimes for weeks at a time. Then the house was lively.”
“Unfortunately, I haven’t been in Brazil long enough to have met many people.” But Sebastien thought about Paolo, and smiled.
“Is everything to your satisfaction, so far?”
“They are, but there is a reason for it. The senhor was not a stingy man. He was most generous. And, whenever he thought money could be invested in a way that would pay off in the long run—to make improvements on the property, or purchase new livestock or equipment, for example—he did not hesitate to do so. But he disliked waste and unnecessary extravagance. If something was still useful, he saw no reason to replace it. He often said that his possessions should grow old, alongside him. Then, eventually, they would be laid to rest—so to speak—or passed on to others, who might make equally good use of them.”
“That seems like a very sensible philosophy.”
“If you wish anything to be changed, you have only to say so, and either I or the housekeeper will arrange it.”
“I don’t see any need to make any radical changes. I must say I am bothered by one other thing I have noticed.”
“And that is, senhor?”
“Except for those photos on the wall in the game room…I don’t see much in the way of the kind of personal items that most people leave lying around, where they live. No other photos, no scrapbooks, no mail, no letters…?”
“Senhor Gilberto did keep many of his personal papers in the study. They are still there. Nothing in that room has been touched. But you are correct, senhor Sebastien. Your uncle tended not to accumulate such things. He disposed of them, periodically. And, during the last weeks of his illness, he sorted through many of his things. He instructed me to send some things to various people. He had many of the photo albums and papers connected with his interest in boats, for example, sent to his old friend, senhor Tressilien, in England. And, to speak frankly, he destroyed many papers. He would say to me, as he looked through the things, ‘Estevao, burn this… Estevao, burn that. I don’t want Sebastien to have to bother with all this old junk.’”
Brazilian Cattle Baron (Siren Publishing Ménage and More ManLove) Page 18