After we read this brief article, buried deep inside the Local section, Graça balled up the newspaper and flung it into the trash.
“There’s not even a crummy reward!” she said. “He didn’t even travel down here to help the search party. If I were a boy, he would’ve clawed through that forest day and night to find me.”
“Do you want to be found?” I asked.
Graça looked in the opposite direction from me. Her chin trembled. “Just wait until we’re famous,” she said. “Wait until he hears me on the radio! He’ll be real sorry he laughed at me then.”
At dawn, in our sagging bed, Graça wove stories about how one day she’d ride into Riacho Doce in her own automobile, with furs at her neck and jewels on her wrists, and announce that we were performing shows in Rio! It was easy to get caught up in such vengeful imaginings: I pictured how the kitchen girls who’d once mocked and hit me would stare openmouthed as they served me coffee in the Great House’s finest china. I imagined slipping Nena a stack of mil-réis and watching as she removed her apron and announced she was quitting the kitchen for good. Graça only imagined her father—how he would weep, hug her, and beg for her forgiveness. Such things were possible only in our imaginations; as long as the Senhor was alive, we could never return to Riacho Doce. Nor could we live completely in peace anywhere in Brazil.
In 1935, a girl was not simply a girl—she was property. First you belonged to your father, then to your husband. For as long as those men lived you were their ward, on par with a child or a mental invalid. Your emancipation came only after their deaths. As long as Senhor Pimentel walked the earth and Graça remained unmarried, she was his, no matter her age or her success. He could swoop in and claim her and any riches she might have, and every police officer, every law, every judge and jury, would be on his side.
Souza was a simpler matter. Worried he’d want his money back, Graça and I took the route many in Lapa took to avoid being caught for transgressions: we traded daytime for nighttime. Instead of going home after singing at Mayrink, we went to work. We were hired as Candy Girls, hanging wooden trays from our necks with a thick strap and selling chewing gum, cigarettes, mints, handkerchiefs, and glass vials of ether to the posh crowds outside Lapa’s best cabarets. Each morning we returned to our boardinghouse feeling empty-headed and exhausted. One such morning, our sour-faced matron waited for us at the door.
“A man came by last night,” the woman said. “Asking questions. Wanting to know if I had any girls living here. He showed me a photograph of a little girl, dressed fancy. He said she was the daughter of a planter up north. He wanted to know if I’d seen anyone like her.”
My stomach cramped. I wrapped my arms around my midsection. “What did you tell him?” I asked.
The matron straightened. “I don’t talk to strange men looking for little girls.” She handed me a calling card. “He left this.”
On the card was the name and address of a private detective based in Recife. Graça grabbed the card and stared at it for a long time, her eyes very wide, as if she’d taken a hit of ether.
I took her arm and guided her upstairs, to our room. There, I tugged our few dresses from their hangers and stuffed them, along with our tangle of camisoles and underwear, into a canvas laundry sack. As I hunched over that sack, I recalled Senhor Pimentel laughing in my face, his breath sour and hot. Pinpricks of sweat needled my forehead.
“What’re you doing?” Graça asked, still holding the card.
“We’re leaving.”
“Why?”
I stopped packing. “He’ll come back.”
Graça stared at the calling card. “Detectives cost a bundle. I wonder how long Papai’s had him looking?”
“Too long,” I said, and tried to pull the card from her hands. Graça snatched it back.
“He’s not looking for you,” I said. “He’s looking for the Little Miss to marry off. And she’s rotting in that Tijuca Forest. There’s no more Graça Pimentel and no more Jega. Those girls are dead and gone. Right?”
Graça’s eyes examined our little room, taking in its yellowed mattress, its stained floor, its crooked window that looked out onto an alley. She moved toward that window and banged it open, then tore the detective’s card to pieces and let them fall—one by one—into the street.
* * *
—
Lapa’s web of alleys and its seemingly endless supply of girls made it easy for Graça and me to believe we could disappear. Our new boardinghouse wasn’t any better than our first, but escaping there made us feel as if we’d foiled both Senhor Pimentel and Mr. Souza. We quickly learned, however, that Lapa was smaller than it seemed, and we were more conspicuous than we’d hoped.
The part of our routine that did not change was singing at Mayrink. Every afternoon we stood on the corner and performed tangos and fados until dusk. Few showed us sympathy. Radio announcers got accustomed to our presence and sometimes smiled in our direction, giving us false hopes. (We were too naive to understand the way radio, still in its nascent stage, worked; how announcers had little power; how jingle singers and radio performers paid bribes or performed all kinds of favors to get their parts.) At best, passersby dropped a few coins at our feet. The money was enough to buy hot coffees to soothe our sore throats. I’m sure we would have given up on Mayrink sooner or later and found a different way to get ourselves noticed, but fate—combined with our own stupidity—intervened. Turns out, we’d already been noticed, just not by the people we’d hoped.
One evening, as Graça and I prepared to leave our Mayrink corner, a boy who’d listened to us the entire afternoon walked in our direction. His shirt was crisp with starch; his shorts had two stiff creases down their front from a hot iron. He smiled at us and clapped.
“You’re like two little birds! No wonder Madame Lucifer wants to see you,” he said.
“Who’s that?” Graça asked.
The boy looked surprised. “Well, if you don’t know, you’re about to find out.” He held out his arms as if he was a gentleman escorting us to a dance. “Ready?”
“We’ve got work,” I replied.
“Skip it,” the boy said.
“You going to pay our rent?” I asked.
The boy’s smile disappeared. “I was sent here to get you kittens, that’s my job. And if I don’t do it, somebody else will. Somebody not so nice. Seems like you’re new here, so I’ll get you wise: when Madame Lucifer asks to see you, you don’t say no.”
Graça and I looked at each other. We could not plot or weigh our options in front of the boy, but we didn’t have to. I was curious, and so was she. The boy seemed respectable, and this Madame—whoever she was—did something few had done since we’d arrived in Lapa: she’d picked us out of the crowd. Maybe she owned a cabaret? Maybe she liked our singing? Whatever the reason, in that moment running away from Lucifer’s boy seemed more trouble than it was worth, and the last thing Graça and I needed was more trouble.
The boy led us to Morais e Vale Street, where the tall houses, shuttered during the day, were beginning to open their windows and turn on their lights. An older woman received us at the door to one of these houses. She wore slippers and a silk robe, and ordered us to keep quiet because her girls were asleep. Months earlier I would’ve thought she meant her children, but after our brief residence in Lapa, I knew better.
The boy remained outside. Graça and I followed the woman through a series of parlors with gauzy yellowed curtains and worn velvet sofas. A stooped girl swept cigarette butts and used matches from the floor. In her dustpan were stray buttons and feathers, which the robed matron ordered her to collect and hand over as soon as she’d finished. In the deepest part of the house, the woman opened two glass-paneled doors and motioned for Graça and me to move through them. We obeyed and the woman left, shutting the doors behind us. I remember feeling quite nervous, but then noticing that, in front o
f us, there was a record player with a large brass horn atop it. Graça and I looked at each other, curious about which record was on the turntable. We walked slowly toward the machine, but before we reached it, I saw movement in the room’s far corner.
A man sat in a plush chair, his face in shadow, his legs crossed at the knee. His suit pants were white, his shoes a gleaming black patent, his socks lavender. I’d never seen that color on a man before. He was long-limbed, making the chair beneath him seem cramped. His thin brown fingers tapped the chair’s arms.
“You ever seen a record player in your lives?” he asked. His voice was as deep and luxurious as a radio announcer’s.
Graça straightened her shoulders. “Sure we have!” she replied.
“Lucky for you,” he said, still in shadow. “You look scrawnier than I pictured. Just goes to show that even the tiniest bees can sting. You girls know who I am?”
Graça and I shook our heads.
“I’m the Queen Bee.”
The man laughed, tilting his head so we could better see his face. His lips were glossed pink. Graça let out a little gasp. I poked her with my elbow. Never in my short life had I imagined that a man could make himself up; novelty can often be more impressive than sheer force. The man lifted himself from his chair and walked toward us. His long legs carried him gracefully across the room, as if he were on wheels.
“You girls ever hear of a man named Souza?” He fixed his gaze on me, his stare as languid and indifferent as a cat’s. His eyebrows were plucked into perfect arches, his lashes as long as a film star’s. Before Graça or I could make a sound, the man spoke again, as if our reply didn’t matter.
“This Souza, he runs a shop—makes horrible little boxes and things for the gringos to carry back home. He pays me to protect that shop. Lapa’s the kind of place where you need a friend like me. Well, a few weeks back, Souza couldn’t pay what he owed. He says some girls he hired bopped him on the head and picked his pockets. An ugly girl and a pretty one, he says. Well, stealing from him is as good as stealing from me. So I ask around, talk to some of the gals that work at Souza’s place, and, wouldn’t you know it? Two girls like the ones Souza talked about sing over at Mayrink every afternoon.”
A tinny whine filled my head. My heart beat fast. I felt hot with rage.
“He’s a pervert,” I said. “We were defending ourselves.”
The man nodded. “And you took the opportunity to steal his money?”
“He didn’t pay her salary,” Graça said.
“That’s a hell of a salary!” he said, laughing. “You must have quick hands to earn that much. Which of you bopped him?”
Graça and I were silent. The man sighed and moved back into his chair.
“The boy that brought you here, he’s been watching your little corner show a few days now. He said you two can hold a note. Why’re you over at Mayrink, collecting coins like little beggars?”
“We’re going to be radio stars,” Graça said.
The man laughed. “Aren’t we all, baby? Now, do me the honor of singing a tune.”
We stared at him, then at each other.
“We’re supposed to be quiet,” I replied. “That’s what the Senhora said.”
The man waved his long-fingered hand. “A Carnaval parade could make its way through here and those girls upstairs would keep sleeping. Besides, it’s time for them to get up and work. Now, sing.”
He sat back in his chair.
“Let’s do the tango then,” Graça whispered. “The one we like from the radio.”
I nodded. It was a romantic duet that we’d memorized at Riacho Doce; I always sang the man’s part. Graça brushed her hair from her face. She moved her fist near her mouth, as if she was holding an invisible microphone.
“I’ve returned from the land of forgetting,
I wasn’t a good citizen there.
I would not give up the memories of our love.
I refused to let go the sweet agony of my despair.”
And then it was my turn. I closed my eyes and forgot the room, the cat-eyed man, the sleeping girls above us.
“I was a slave to your heart,
to your whims and cruel demands.
And you repaid me with betrayal
putting yourself in another’s hands.”
Our time at Sion had improved the way Graça and I sang together. Being in a chorus of girls had forced Graça to become a better listener, and made me less shy about releasing my voice, flaws and all. In that dark Lapa room, during each solo verse, Graça and I let our voices move around and then, finally, embrace in the last chorus. Together, we produced a sound both delicate and urgent. The room became thick with our layered voices, like the air just before an afternoon thunderstorm.
When we finished, I opened my eyes to see the man on the edge of his chair, elbows on his knees, hands woven together under his chin. The robed woman who’d received us stood in the doorway, her eyes wide. The man stood, slipped his hand into his pocket, and produced a thick wad of bills. He counted several bills—more than we would have made in three months as butterfly girls—and held them in front of us.
“Go buy yourselves some new threads,” he said. “And some closed shoes. Those rope sandals make you look like urchins.”
Graça and I made no motion to take the money. The man raised his perfectly arched brows and shook the bills at us. I glanced at the robed matron still in the doorway, then back at the man.
“Why are you paying us?”
“I’m not paying you,” he replied. “Paying means you’ve done me a service, and that hasn’t happened yet. I’m making you girls a loan. And I’m considering the money you stole from Souza a loan, too—taking out the wages he owed you, of course. Congratulations, girls. You’ve got new jobs.”
“What’ll we do?” Graça asked, her voice a whisper.
“I’m not going to waste you two upstairs, if that’s what you’re worried about. But I’ll tell you what you won’t do: you won’t be singing on street corners anymore. And you won’t be bopping people on their heads,” he said, chuckling. “You can read and write, can’t you? Do arithmetic?”
Graça and I nodded. The man took my hand and pressed the money inside it.
“Good. Now, go to the dress shop on Conde de Lages Street and be sure to tell them I sent you. You’ll get more butter on your bread that way.”
“What name should we give them at the shop?” I asked. “Who should we say sent us?”
“My proper name’s Francisco Marcelino,” the man replied, smiling, “but around here they call me Madame Lucifer.”
* * *
—
At the dress shop, Graça and I were fitted for three gowns apiece. Upon hearing the name “Madame Lucifer,” the seamstress put a rush on our order, and our first new dresses were ready the very next day. At a nearby diner, when we mentioned we were Madame Lucifer’s girls, we got double portions of eggs and bread. Graça and I smiled and shoveled the food into our mouths; we hadn’t eaten so well since Riacho Doce. And as soon as our landlady discovered we worked for Madame L., she gave us a room with a window that faced the street and not the alley, and with a private bathroom.
Before we’d even started our new jobs, Graça and I discovered what everyone in Lapa already seemed to know: Madame Lucifer was a successful businessman who also offered loans and protection to most merchants in Lapa. Protection from what, we weren’t sure. But we learned that he always kept a gold-handled knife tucked into his belt, even when he slept. Just two years before, he’d used that knife to gut a longshoreman in the cramped booth of a bar because the man had called Madame L. a bicha. Each year during Lapa’s raucous Carnaval parades, there was a costume contest. Francisco Marcelino always dressed as Madame Lucifer—a temptress and witch in elaborate gowns and enormous wigs. He’d won the contest ten years in a row, and t
he temptress’s name became his own.
Madame L. didn’t read or write well, so we became his secretaries. Each morning Graça read him the newspaper (he liked her voice better) and I wrote his correspondence (he preferred my handwriting). He sent letters to the editor and looked for them in the papers each day, though they were never printed. He sent dispatches to his tailor requesting new suits, and cryptic notes to merchants around Lapa, which Graça and I delivered. The notes seemed harmless enough when Madame L. dictated them to me, but as soon as the merchants read Lucifer’s cards, many grew pale and immediately handed Graça and me thick envelopes of their own. What was inside these envelopes we could only guess; we’d been instructed never to open them. Another one of our duties was to find the large black Studebaker always dutifully parked on Lapa Street, just at the border with the Glória neighborhood, and rap on its window. The driver always took us to the Royal Bakery, where three kilos of French bread were waiting for us. This much bread filled four enormous paper bags, which Graça and I carried—as warm as babies in our arms—back to the cab. Then the driver took us around Lapa and we delivered loaves to places Madame L. had specified. As ordered, we always saved a loaf for our driver and gave it to him at the end of the ride. Once, one of the drivers broke open his bread in front of us and inside was a vial of white powder. Another driver once forced two loaves from my hands. I explained this to Madame L., who did not chastise me for the loss. A week later, we overheard the good-time girls in Madame L.’s house gossiping: that driver had turned up drowned in Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon.
Fortunately, the only money Graça and I handled was our salary, which was more than enough for our weekly room and board. Graça was still ogled on the street, but there were no more propositions and no more lewd jokes. Being Madame L.’s girls gave us a sense of freedom, and wealth, that we hadn’t had before. When a model in Shimmy! magazine appeared in wide-legged trousers, Graça and I went straight to the tailor’s shop and put a stack of bills on his counter.
The Air You Breathe Page 13
