by João Almino
We stayed there until dark, listening to speeches by Israel Pinheiro, by a barber who wanted to speak in the name of the people, and by the president, and the mysterious woman never made an appearance, a woman whom I visualized as luminous, wearing flowing garments, a saint upon an altar. According to what Valdivino was saying, without her presence, the day would be a waste, completely purposeless. If only the president could at least make up for her absence somehow . . . I had a special memory of him, since on one of the three hundred trips that he made to Brasília during its construction—and there had been forty-one months of construction—he had driven to the Free City in his Romi-Isetta, accompanied by his daughters, Márcia and Maria Estela, to attend a circus performance, and he had shaken hands with a number of kids, although I wasn’t able to get close to him, but during the performances I kept my eye on his Cheshire cat grin, which made his face wrinkle all over whenever the clown pulled some prank, or when the chimpanzee rode a bicycle or a tricycle or walked around on stilts or balanced on the slackline, or even when the trapeze artists amazed us as they flew from one side of the ring to the other. I ran into him on other occasions and saw hundreds of photos of him, but none of these images ever supplanted that scene, forever stored away in my memory like the final scene of a film or a painting on the main wall of a museum. Even when he was being serious, for me he was always that same grinning Cheshire cat that I’d encountered on that day long ago.
Imagine my expectations at that moment, the pleasure I felt in seeing him again, in the possibility of getting to shake his hand, less out of vanity than out of genuine admiration, a sense of admiration that could only be compared to Aunt Francisca’s veneration of the saints. Judging from what I heard, Dad, Valdivino, and Aunt Matilde’s boyfriend all knew him, and it seemed possible that he would come over to talk to us. But no, that was but a sweet illusion, the ceremony ended without him even deigning to shake our hands.
Walking through the Three Powers Plaza, we looked out towards the Esplanade of the Ministries. It’s like the president says, Roberto observed, this is the first capital built from scratch, in an uninhabited place, without the support of any village or town.
It’s all because of you all that I was able to work on the construction of that building, the twenty-eight, said Valdivino, pointing to the National Congress building, with its two “washbasins” (one right-side up and the other upside down), which the workers called “twenty-eight” because of the number of floors it had. All the thanks goes to Roberto, said Aunt Matilde, I guess that now you also owe me thanks for the fact that you’re always on the run and have to live in hiding, commented Roberto, What happened later isn’t your fault, Sir, but I’ve been thinking: this trouble never would have happened if I’d kept building churches instead of working in that building. Always talkative, but with a timid, polite manner about him, Valdivino told us that at first he’d lived in the construction firm’s camp close to the iron buildings—“that’s what we called the Ministry buildings”—and later moved to the Planalto Villa, “over there on the other side of the Planalto Palace.” I started as just a laborer, carrying bags of cement in wheelbarrows, we worked both day and night because we had to meet the deadlines for the inauguration, Oh you poor thing, said Aunt Matilde, that’s a form of slavery, You should have told me, said Roberto, with his arm around Aunt Matilde’s waist, you should have started out in a better position, I don’t complain, no sir, Mr. Roberto, they paid well, and I had that debt from the trip here, since I brought my brother with me, sometimes I also worked weekends and holidays, when they paid us double, and while on other jobs I’d been paid eighteen or at most twenty-five cruzeiros an hour, when we went up in those tall buildings of the “twenty-eight” that you see over there, they paid me up to fifty cruzeiros an hour, which was my way of making that little double-pay that you all got, he said, referring to the doubled salary which Aunt Matilde had a right to, just for having moved from Rio to Brasília. But the salary should have been even more, Mr. Moacyr, I’m all about work, not about accepting rewards for things I should be doing anyway, a worker has to be serious, efficient, honest, and has to be paid well for what he does, don’t you think so, Mr. Moacyr?
It was already seven o’clock, Dad was getting impatient and left in a hurry for the inauguration of the Correio Braziliense, the first newspaper in Brasília, and he wanted to be there at seven-thirty when the first lady arrived with her daughters, Wait for me here, he requested.
She’s still gonna come, she promised me she would, Valdivino said after Dad left. We were silent, Valdivino suffering because of his friend’s tardiness, and me measuring the passing of time by the second- and minute-hands of my new watch and watching the night fall upon the Ministry buildings, while Aunt Matilde and Roberto exchanged smiles and whispers.
Now, it was definitely dangerous, said Valdivino, taking up the subject once again, that’s why they paid more, Mr. Roberto, there were fatal accidents, because they hired people with no experience and there were no safety measures, when one person fell, they’d cover him with a tarp and take him away, there was one day when seven people fell all at once, six of them died and one was maimed, and it wasn’t just here, the coffin-maker in Newcap stayed busy all the time, there were days when twenty or thirty people died, from accidents or sickness, the bodies taken to the cemetery in Luziânia; the migrant workers really are heroes, warriors, Dona Matilde, they deserve that bronze statue, he said, pointing at the sculpture by Bruno Giorgi at the far end of the Three Powers Plaza.
It was already dark, and the temperature slowly began to drop, I’m going to turn into a popsicle, Aunt Matilde complained, This is the perfect temperature for me, said Roberto, It’s strange, I think something changed when I told her that Mr. Moacyr was coming, said Valdivino, But didn’t you work here as a master-builder, Valdivino?, asked Aunt Matilde, continuing the earlier conversation, as if she had doubts about the stories he was telling.
I was only a laborer in the beginning, I’d help out with whatever was needed, I even worked as a framer, which means I set up the steel rebar frames of those two washbasins, the one that contains the Chamber of Deputies and the one on the right, the one that’s upside down, which holds the Senate, but what I really wanted to be was a mason or a carpenter, a profession that has good job security, and then a guy walked by who recognized me from back when I was building Mr. Bernardo Sayão’s house and he asked me, Hey aren’t you Valdivino?, Yes, I am, Well, Mr. Sayão used to speak so highly of you, and you’re still just a laborer? I still am, But you could be working as a foreman, that’s what he said. And it was true, because I pay attention to details and demanded that each piece of material be cut very precisely, when there were really careless people out there who only got their job because they knew someone from back home. Mr. Sayão never found out about this, but I owe my promotion to him. It was then that I found a place in Planalto Villa, where they’d gathered people from the Pacheco Fernandes labor camp, which was in charge of the construction of the palaces, and the Rabelo, Pederneiras, and National camps as well. More than three thousand people lived there. Since I was by myself, they didn’t want to give me housing on the other side of the parking lot and soccer field, where the foremen and master-builders and engineers lived with their families, but I was able to escape the bunkhouses. The only problem was that I had to share a room with a policeman from the SPB, the guy who is still after me. I have to go around armed at all times—Valdivino patted his waistband. Don’t tell me you carry a revolver around, said Roberto, surprised, and cuddled up to Aunt Matilde, as ever.
I looked at Roberto and wished I had some engineer’s boots just like his, not just to keep my feet from getting muddy, but also so I could feel superior to the rest of humanity. The quality of the boots unequivocally established the hierarchy. Through them, rather than the jeans and khaki canvas shirts that Valdivino also wore, I was able to distinguish between the engineers and the workers. I saw boots all over the place, the shoemakers and shoe-shiners of
the Free City were all busy with boots, not shoes, and I found Roberto’s boots especially beautiful, tall boots, with pleats above the ankle. A person’s heart is like the world itself and can spin around time and again, I recalled the first time that Aunt Matilde and Roberto ever saw each other, at our house—him, taller than Dad, muscular, and dark-skinned, standing beside the window, a determined expression on his face, and her, cold and disinterested. Now here they were kissing and hugging, like infatuated lovers.
No, not a revolver, I don’t even know how to shoot, but I always have to carry my machete, Valdivino replied, I don’t even know you anymore, Valdivino, have you turned into a bandit?, asked Aunt Matilde in a jesting tone, Well the guy told everybody that he wants to kill me, and he’s not the only one who’s said that.
Dad finally returned. He had witnessed Dona Sarah cut the symbolic ribbon and press the button that turned on the newspaper’s printing press.
Later on, along with thousands of other people, we patiently waited for the Mass that was going to be held at the altar they’d set up in the Three Powers Plaza.
What time is it?, Valdivino asked me, still wondering about his failure to meet up with the mysterious woman he was waiting for. Twenty ‘til midnight, I replied. Then we heard, in both Portuguese and Latin, the brief papal statement that named Cardinal Patriach of Lisbon Dom Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira as Papal Legate of His Eminence, the Sovereign Pontiff. She’ll certainly be here for the Mass, said Valdivino.
Look at the iron cross, João, it was brought all the way from Braga, in Portugal, said my Dad, pointing it out to me when the Mass began at eleven forty-five, while the choir sang Mozart’s Coronation Mass. I couldn’t see it, Over there! It’s a really small cross, the same one used during the first Mass held in Brazil, in April of 1500.
When midnight came and the bell—the one brought from Ouro Preto, which had mournfully announced the death of Tiradentes on April 21, 1792—celebrated the city that had been born after less than three years of construction, Valdivino started to cry, to hug me, to hug Dad and the strangers around him as well. Then I realized that everyone in the crowd was hugging each other and crying. I looked at Dad; his eyes were moist with tears, too. Aunt Matilde and Roberto weren’t crying, but the look on their faces was somewhere between amazed and gleeful as they looked around the plaza. I kept track of time on the beautiful watch Dad had given me, at nineteen after the hour the host was raised, then the Naval Rifle Corps Band played the national anthem, and the Three Powers Plaza, the Esplanade of Ministries, and the bus station were all lit up, right in front of us, as if by magic, under the spotlights. Dad pointed out to me that even the president was crying along with the people, I too, looking at the city all lit up, could feel my eyes well up with tears, and neither Roberto nor even Aunt Matilde could bear it any longer, I could see tears running down their faces.
It was at that moment that, out of nowhere, like an apparition, a dark-skinned woman appeared, still young-looking in her thirties, who, in a fury, grabbed Valdivino by the arm and took off with him. It took us by surprise, we were dumbfounded, and I spotted Valdivino from a distance and could see him turn his long, thin nose back toward us, but the woman pulled him along, unwavering. That nutcase is Valdivino’s famed girlfriend?, asked Aunt Matilde, Yes, that’s her, Dad responded, dryly, So, you already know her? Dad didn’t reply. I looked at my watch again, it was twelve forty-five when we began to hear the voice of Pope John XXIII over the loudspeaker, transmitted by Vatican Radio:
From All Saints Bay to Piratininga and Rio de Janeiro, under the always vibrant influence of Nóbrega and Anchieta, and emboldened by the heroic efforts of the Southern Expeditions and the campaigns in the North, Brazil, through the daring of its president, is putting down the stakes of its new capital in the Central Plateau of its immense and rich territory, which shall stand sentry over the Nation’s destiny. Brasília shall thus represent a milestone in the history of the glorious Land of the Holy Cross, opening up new channels of love, hope, and progress among its people, who, united in one faith and one tongue, shall become fit for the most grandiose undertakings. We pray that God—continuing to pour out His grace in abundance—will make Brazil into an ever-stronger, ever-grander, ever-freer nation, in the light of the Gospel and the teachings of the Church, opposed to all that might rob it of its strength, compromise its greatness, and diminish its freedom.
After the choir sang the Te Deum and the Papal Legate blessed the city and the Brazilian flag, we started to make our way out of the plaza, and Aunt Matilde was still looking around, to see if she could spot Valdivino and his friend somewhere in the middle of the crowd. It was one-thirty in the morning and the ceremony had just ended to boisterous applause, many people were going to stay up all night to secure a good spot in the Three Powers Plaza for the inaugural ceremonies, which would begin at eight in the morning, but we returned to the Free City. And what do you think happened to Valdivino?, asked Aunt Matilde, as if she had some foreboding, You’re right, that woman is a real nutcase, replied Dad, He seems untroubled, but you saw it, he goes around armed, said Aunt Matilde, And he’s also taking a risk by showing up in public like that, it’s better to just stay in hiding, Roberto added, He only mentioned the policeman, but what about the landowner he owes money to, and the father of the girl he got pregnant?, recalled Aunt Matilde. Don’t worry, said Dad, tomorrow you’ll see Valdivino in the parade down the Grand Axis Highway.
Perhaps they put more emotion in their dialogues than I was able to capture, and it could also be that, without intending to, I have corrected the grammar of that conversation, which lasted longer than the sentences above would lead one to believe, it stretched out into other subjects, and I also can’t guarantee that it corresponds exactly to my transcription of it, there were points of confusion, ellipses, omissions, and interpolated stories. From all that I can remember, I’ve only selected that which will give you all an idea about these characters from my childhood and also, at the request of the blog-readers, that which will give you a notion of the historical moment that we lived through.
I left out my conversation with Valdivino because it was mainly focused on the gravity of his friend’s absence and various related foolish notions. I also cut out conversations with strangers, which, if I had to be precise, would take up more than a page of this story, and I don’t want to force you all to read more than is necessary. I eliminated the descriptions of all we could see from the plaza, since I would have had to spill out an enormous amount of words on that subject alone. Suffice it to say that we were all amazed by the Three Powers Plaza and the space that opened up above the Esplanade of the Ministries, which was thrown into relief by the elegance of the buildings. Why should I waste your reading time on descriptions of the Planalto Palace, for example, if a mere photograph can more precisely transmit the delicacy of its columns, which seem barely to touch the ground? Above all, I don’t want to tire you with the description of what I was thinking, for I was thinking a lot and my thoughts had a single focus, I was thinking about Aunt Matilde, about her enormous butt, her breasts, her breath, her hands pulling me towards her, and about her threats. I also haven’t included Valdivino’s Bahian accent here, nor certain words from his complicated vocabulary, which I can’t even remember anyways, although I do recall that they were beautiful and well-spoken. Finally, for those blog-readers who complain about not being mentioned, let me clarify that I’ve decided to change tactics in this second chapter and I’ll no longer mention every single person who writes to me, but, as you all have noticed, I’ve taken your observations into account in order to touch up a timeline, add a detail about the ceremonies, include the complete name of a cardinal, or a message from the Pope.
Aunt Francisca liked to assert, Valdivino speaks slowly and more properly than everyone else, he’s an educated young man, and one time she even said that given his skills, he could get work in “something else,” But I don’t want to do anything but build churches, he replied.
/> Enough! I’ve written too much about April 20 and I think that maybe I’ll divide this chapter in two, because starting now we’re into the next day, April 21, the date of Brasília’s inauguration, when, at eight in the morning, my two aunts, Typhoon, and I all sat down next to the radio and listened to the Guardian Battalion Band play reveille, in the very Three Powers Plaza we’d been in the night before with Valdivino. Aunt Francisca wanted us to stand when the radio announcer declared that JK was raising the Brazilian flag—now with one more star, he said, the twenty-second—while the national anthem was performed by the Naval Rifle Corps Band, but Aunt Matilde protested, Nonsense, Francisca! Seated in front of the radio during a large part of the morning, I visualized every one of the acts described by the announcer, the presentation of credentials by one hundred and fifty ambassadors in the Planalto Palace, the instatement of the three powers of the Republic, and the first ministerial meeting.
We were moved by the emotion in the president’s voice when, close to tears, he pronounced the final words of his speech: “On this day, the 21st of April, consecrated to Second Lieutenant Joaquim José da Silva Xavier, known as Tiradentes, and to the one hundred and thirty-eighth year since Independence and the seventy-first year since the establishment of the Republic, I declare, under the protection of God, that the city of Brasília, the capital of the United States of Brazil, is hereby inaugurated.”
The sun was already high in the sky when I went to the Esplanade of the Ministries with my aunts, them in their best dresses and me in the white linen shirt that Dad gave me as a present.
Aunt Francisca couldn’t stop praising Valdivino, lamenting the fact that he was on the run and living like a convict. Aunt Matilde described the scenes from the night before, when some shrew had cruelly whisked him away without even deigning to direct a single word to us, You’ll see, it’ll turn out that on top of being nuts, she’s mute. I’m happy that he managed to get permission to march in the parade with the other migrant workers, let’s try to get a good spot so we can see Valdivino, said Aunt Francisca.
