For several days, Sonia had noticed masses of ants wandering her white furniture, forming ovals that later disappeared; it was now clear that they were coming from the ceiling. The mother (Sonia) deposited her son (Cassio) in his high chair and adjusted the straps. At first he wouldn’t stop howling, but after eating he entered the state of drowsy well-being that is particularly pronounced in future fat kids. Coffee in hand, Sonia drew near to the invisible nest; the ants were enormous, muscular, so the path of the invasion (though not, perhaps, the relentlessly increasing size of the colony) was easy to ascertain.
Sonia put her mouth up to a crack in the wall and blew; ants fell into her mug and spasmed in the acidic bath.
A biographical sketch of the molecules that would end up composing young Cassio—the prelude to his expert hacker phase in the age of anarchic capitalism—must begin at another latitude. The beaker holding his DNA was located in Porto Alegre, capital of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Recalibrating the image, one can see Sonia Liberman, the blonde daughter of a prosperous Argentinian real estate agent, in a supine position, wearing a very short flowery dress, receiving violent bursts of seminal discharge.
The trajectory in question found Sonia propelled across the Argentinian-Brazilian border as part of her university’s labor force in 1981. The head of social anthropology at University of Buenos Aires, Juan Carlos Carrales, had interviewed her in the hope that she would join his research team, which was traveling to Brazil for fieldwork. Her hard work and excellent grades were duly noted, and after a few meetings Sonia (who was actually a linguistics student, and had never done fieldwork in her life) received her letter of acceptance: two months in Porto Alegre and its neighboring villages researching modes of coexistence between Kaingáng villagers of the Jê linguistic family and the fazendeiros that descended from Indian hunters.
Sonia was the only woman in the group. There were two other advanced undergrads like her, Mauricio and Pío, and two graduate students, Gustavo Levas and “El Teto” Rattachi. She knew Mauricio and Pío from her anthropology courses; her interactions with them had been agreeable, almost friendly. Sonia and Gustavo shared the eighteen-hour bus ride to Porto Alegre, during which he threw himself into descriptions of his experiences as a missionary in Somalia, his plans to make a name for himself in fieldwork with indigenous peoples, his fluency in Quechua and São Paulo–accented Portuguese, and everything else he could think of that might impress her.
In the early eighties, Porto Alegre was the gilded cradle of Brazilian livestock. Away to the south from the turmoil of Rio and the sluggishness of the northeast, with ample land and a temperate climate, the region had positioned itself as Brazil’s moral reserve. It was in Porto Alegre that the Workers Party (PT) was born, and it was the gaúcha elite that propelled the PT onto the national stage. A product of miscegenation between Trotskyite elements, theologians, and ex-guerrilleros, the PT would end up working with the Argentinian government to promote the DNA mapping initiative, known as the LatAm Genetic Data Unification Project. But none of this could yet be spotted on the horizon in March of 1981, when the institutions of both Argentina and Brazil were under military control, and collaboration between university institutes was still rare.
Brazilians were more direct than Argentinians. Early on, Sonia looked favorably upon the Brazilian tendency to hold hands, to look one another in the eye: the collective instinct to touch one another and laugh together. Brazilians gave two kisses to say hello, and goodbyes included a hug, occasionally with an extra bit of fondling at the waist; in general their friendliness seemed genuine, as if it truly gave them pleasure to make your acquaintance.
On her second day there, the head of the Brazilian group, Luíz Fábio Fondas, invited the Argentinians to a friendship dinner with their local counterparts. Charming and soft-spoken, Luíz Fábio guided Sonia off to one side of the restaurant, his arm sliding around her waist, fluid as a snake in water.
He wanted to introduce Sonia to his wife, Maria da Graça Maibrán Schutz, a striking blonde, her maw painted pink, triangles of green plastic in her earlobes. Maria da Graça opened into ample hugs (Prazer em conhecê-la!), amassing Sonia in a turmoil of lipstick and curly hair. After a couple caipirinhas, Sonia’s research colleagues suddenly seemed mysteriously intelligent, as if they had unraveled the secrets of contemporary life, sharing them privately amongst themselves. It also seemed to her that all of the men now had an extra expression at their disposal, indicating, perhaps, that they belonged to the primate council dedicated to the lowliest of the species’ activities.
Surrounded by their youngest viziers at the head of the table, Luíz Fábio and Carrales exchanged the ritual gestures of chief anthropologists. It was indisputable that Levi-Strauss had infused the discipline with extraordinary oomph here in Brazil, at a time when educated Argentines only appeared capable of dreaming up scansions of Marxist dogma; measured against the sum of upper primate history on Earth, it was no big deal, but at least, reasoned Carrales, it was something. He spoke with restrained solemnity as he took hold of a bottle of soda water and let the liquid gush slowly, the others listening calmly but intently.
The presence of Maria da Graça was a show of local strength, but the Argentines had their own blonde—Sonia, younger and single—so it wasn’t yet clear who had the upper hand. Unaware as to the table’s geopolitics, Sonia toyed with her serving of abacaxi. Her throat was a little sore, giving her a tendency to roll her tongue back toward her palate. Maybe it hurt because she’d been mixing guttural and nasal sounds, she thought; speaking competent Portuguese required tightening one’s perineum and ululating from one’s lower belly, movements to which she was unaccustomed. A bit lightheaded from the cachaça, Sonia excused herself and went to get some air.
Outside, a flagstone path carried out into a grove of palms. There was a wooden arrow painted green, and Sonia followed it. She walked among the immense fronds that had fallen from the trees and laid stretched out like octopi. To her side, the magnificent Lagoa dos Patos shone brightly beneath the gigantic moon; the aroma of the night was intensely vegetal. The stars of the Milky Way could be seen gathering, dense and violet against the black velvet. She sensed that someone was following her, but didn’t see anyone.
The path led her to a hut covered with plants and vines where the banheiros were hidden. Inside, Sonia leaned down over to dampen the nape of her neck; in the mirror she saw that her hair was disheveled, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol and the heat. She never saw his face. He came up slowly from behind. Spinning her around, he stuck his tongue in her mouth, pressing her firmly against the tap. Responding to what she suspected to be an exercise in local custom, she curved her body slowly backward, attempting to avoid the kiss, to send a message of doubt, reserve, femininity. In spite of this nucleus of coyness, her movements propelled her pubis against him.
Their tongues entwined slowly, reptilian, not a word passed between them. Sonia confirmed the intimate, nearly supplicant form of his erection; when he began to caress her thigh, extending his hand so as to trace with one finger the edge of the tanga she had acquired that afternoon in a shop on Rua da Praia, Sonia took courage, and detached her mouth to take a breath. She asked him if he was a member of the research team. Smiling, her unidentified beijador asked what part of Argentina she was from.
The sexual exchanges propagated in Brazil en masse during temperature peaks would later be charted in tidal waves of DNA data, sweeping through digital leviathans; at the time, however, Sonia’s situation felt like a private event, closed and sufficient unto itself, with only the two of them taking part, a love affair. Extracting herself from between the twin pipes of the tap, she whispered, “Buenos Aires,” a bit discomfited in the face of his confidence. She left the bathroom with smudged makeup, her mouth swollen by his kisses.
In Tupinambá mythology, encounters between different species are considered part of a magical realm. One species begins by imitating
another, adopting the other’s movements in order to eat them, but their love story exceeds the arc of humanity. Upon its own death, the eater species awaits a reencounter in another world so as to devour the other species again. Sonia walked close along the handrail, admiring her own intrepidity; her heels undulated, almost liquid.
In the sky, the moon shone iridescent, while in the lower kingdom of men, the owners of the restaurant had put music on, and separated the tables a bit so that people could dance. The Brazilians shook their arms and hips to the rhythm; the Argentinians clomped about as best they could. The song playing was the “Disco Samba” medley by the Belgian pop group Two Man Sound—all the rage during the 1982 World Cup.
Caipirinha in hand, Gustavo stood apart from the dancing and watched. Now that he had arrived in Brazil to fulfill his destiny, he had no intention of wasting time in the conga line of university politics; he preferred getting wasted. He saw Sonia come in out of nowhere and sit down alone at a table, searching for something in her purse. He came up slowly from behind, and spoke directly to the nape of her neck:
“You don’t dance?”
Startled, Sonia turned her head without losing control of the lipstick at her lips. Gustavo leaned in close:
“I mean, given that we’ve crossed the fortieth parallel, we should embrace their primitive behavior, if only in the name of mimesis.”
Sonia ran her hand through her hair and dropped her gaze; she hadn’t liked his comment. Gustavo was perfectly familiar with the feminine code: fixing the hair and lowering the gaze were parts of a symptom cluster that would give him the chance to rub his protuberances against hers until he could eventually insert himself, triumphant. He sat down beside her, smelled her arm. She seemed a little drunk; it was only a matter of waiting. From the black speakers came Rita Lee singing her 1979 hit “Chega Mais”:
I know that face
I know that voice, that smell
That crazy look
That fire, that thing
Scandalous, you are gluttonous
And you want to kindnap me
A shadow set a cold beer on the corner of the table. “Excuse me, but I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
Gustavo watched the new arrival through the round edge of his caipirinha glass. That the girl he liked should be stolen by a Brazilian mapped perfectly to one of the shared prejudices that unify the continent geologically. A product of Ibero-African blends, Brazilian masculinity contained so many mutated genes that it had room for both the ugliest and the most exalted elements of the race; the affront was, to Gustavo, an unstoppable phase in genetic-historical materialisms the sort of destiny that left his own sex appeal down among the bland and unattractive, and who knows, maybe Chileans. He refused to battle and faded into the background, returned to the bar, ordered a whisky. Sonia was still touching her hair. Then you take me home . . . You torture me with kisses . . . Until you make me confess . . .
Sonia wasn’t used to being easy. Now, naked and horizontal, she took João Fernando Brandão da Silva to be the missing link to sapiens sapiens. She learned that, beyond his dark thighs, his well-turned body, and that majestic lance enveloped in blue veins, João Fernando was a successful aeronautical engineer. He didn’t have anything to do with her university research team, had in fact been sitting at the next table over, but he swore that from the moment he saw her walk in, he hadn’t been able to take his eyes off of her. He worked for Varig, the aviation company, and was here at the invitation of their local office; he told her that this was his last night in Porto Alegre. His next destination was São José dos Campos—“You should come visit one day,” he said with a smile.
She let herself be penetrated in the missionary position, and after that, in spite of her initial protests, from behind; she choked violently during fellatio, and he consoled her by kissing her passionately. Sonia then experienced what subsequent pornography consecrated as a “Brazilian bang,” popularized by the televised orgies of the Carnavals in the Complexo do Alemão; completely doubled up beneath his hands, she could barely breathe. João Fernando hadn’t been with an Argentinian before, but appeared to have certain ideas; in the postcoital chat, he once again murmured that her attitude, in general, was very Argentinian. “But I’ve never met a girl like you,” he said in solid Spanish, which Sonia shattered with kisses.
That night they went down to the beach; back in the restaurant overlooking the Lagoa, the research teams inhabited a far-off, illuminated fish tank. In the sky there was a meteor shower, and João Fernando took her by the hand, the flickers of light crackling in his retinas. Her body seemed lighter than before, the sweat at her temples curled her hair, the night pawed at her through the flowery dress. Sonia felt happy. On another order of certitude, she had encountered the source of DNA that she would strive to reproduce.
Cassio’s progenitors consolidated their new relationship by lying together at night in the soft sand of Canasvieiras, one of the top resorts in the early 1980s. Theirs was the type of relationship that wasn’t destined to last, one wherein the exchange—the suppuration—of sexual fluids serves as core. João Fernando soon left his job at Varig, lured away by Embraer, which was to become the leading manufacturer of commercial aircraft in Latin America.
The Brazilian Embraer began in the Argentine province of Córdoba, after World War II. It was Kurt Tank, a refugee from the Third Reich, who laid the foundation for the first viable airplane built on South American soil, the Pulqui II. Under the alias Pedro Matthies, accompanied by a group of fellow Germans who had hidden their brown shirts safely away to escape to South America, Tank designed a plane intended to be the dernier cri in jet aircraft. Under his tutelage, the Aerotechnical Institute became the Military Aircraft Factory, and there he built the South American successor to the Messerschmitt, an evolved version of the Luftwaffe mainstay, albeit influenced by the admiration and anxiety that Soviet engineering had provoked: that is, a synthesis of the best craft of its era.
Argentina had been the last nation to withdraw its support for the Third Reich; unlike Brazil, who had bet on the Allies and, as a show of allegiance to the United States, established internment camps on Brazilian soil for Japanese immigrants, Argentina was all in on Nazis right to the end. The year 1945 found Argentina on the side of evil, while Brazil consolidated its diplomatic love affair with the United States, the new global police; for Argentina, that was the kickoff of decline. The year 1945 is deemed by many the beginning of the Anthropocene era, when nuclear weapons foreshortened our sense of the earth; however, Argentina’s links with the Nazis allowed her to import the fleeing German brainpower, which resulted in the largest technological investment in regional history. A explosion in slow motion, the Anschluss had greater impact in the Americas than any previous attempt of industrial dissemination.
Many of the scientists who’d fled the Reich ended up with no choice but to park their top-flight engineering brains in minor industries, like the manufacture of home appliances and water heaters. Soon, the cycle of Argentine political instability set in motion by the Anthropocene caused substantial losses within Kurt Tank’s hand-picked staff. Many of the brains that carried his engineering virus didn’t hesitate to move abroad in search of better conditions; Brazil capitalized on this diaspora. Unlike Argentina, Brazil decided to shut down the effort of building a military air fleet and focus on commercial aircraft. The country began to attract new waves of scientists into its matrix of influence, eventually drawing in luminaries of nuclear and particle physics such as Richard Feynman, who became famous throughout the cabarets of Rio de Janeiro for scribbling equations on napkins during striptease shows. The Embraer fleet, now competing evenly with Boeing, is the direct descendant of this first infestation of German cerebral capital in Brazil.
Political crises punctuated further diasporas from Tank’s institution, even as Argentina maintained its role as an engineering training ground. In fact, João Fernando
had learned his lilting Spanish by reading Argentinian aeronautics manuals—a feature that he shared with the president of his country, Fernando Henrique Cardoso. Among Kurt Tank’s men was one Ronald Richter, who would transport his hydrogen bomb project to a small island a thousand kilometers south of Córdoba (Bariloche, 1948) in the first South American attempt to become a nuclear power.
According to Professor Carrales, Brazilian industry was blessed to have developed behind the back of high culture. “It integrated itself into the bourgeois capitalist paradigm without ever passing through the domestic and domesticating sphere of culture, with a capital C,” he explained, spreading his arms. His shirt was open down to his solar plexus; a thin gold chain shone beneath his Adam’s apple. Sonia remembered her first interview with Carrales quite well: his glass of Scotch, his dark tobacco cigarettes. A cigarette began its voyage from the ashtray to his mouth as he once more jumped ahead to the conclusion:
“The Brazilians have just started climbing down from the palm trees; millions of them are still up there, but when they all come down, they’re going to take over and God help us all then.”
He assured Sonia that the research project had the support of the departmental leadership, so there would be sufficient funding to guarantee continuity. He might also propose a new project involving cultural anthropology, a field on the rise:
“For example, the mating rituals of each region—what is vulgarly known as pornography. You see it in American porn films: the female takes control of her own penetration, using the formula, ‘Fuck me, fuck me!’ She’s giving an order, is clearly pressuring the male, is expecting a high-quality performance, and the male responds to her demand. Now, what happens in South American cultural products of this type? The female emits messages like, ‘Oh, no, no, are you really going to do that to me? Oh, please, no . . .’ The verbal begging is set in contrast to the body language of the female, which demands—that is to say, orchestrates—the act of copulation. There is probably a regional evolutionary advantage involved in our need to alleviate as much as possible the weight that the male must bear in the course of his performance, our determination to allow him to be the one applying the pressure rather than suffering it. Which brings to mind the invention of syphilis here on South American soil. It was one of our first export products based on a European component, in the sense that at the beginning, the colonists feared or were disgusted by the natives and preferred to have sexual contact with llamas and sheep instead. Which is to say that as a zoonosis, syphilis is a product of the horror that the colonists felt at this circumstance of total control over the one penetrated, at the shift from pressured to pressurer. That switch from the passive participle to the –ens form of the present participle is hardly a trivial matter—you took Latin, right?”
Dark Constellations Page 2