The Air You Breathe

by Frances De Pontes Peebles

  In the weeks before the show, Graça and Madame L. sketched pages of possible costumes: evening dresses with ruffled skirts and feathered collars, dramatically drape-backed gowns with scarf point hems that would sway as Sofia Salvador moved across a stage. Madame L. hired seamstresses to make these designs a reality, but the ruffled and feathered gowns overwhelmed Graça’s tiny frame, making her look like a child who had raided her mother’s closet. In the end, they commissioned a cherry-red evening gown for Sofia, and a set of brand-new tuxedos for the Blue Moon boys. The clothes were expensive, which meant we’d borrowed a hefty sum from Madame L. to look presentable for the Mayrink show. All of us felt pressure to make it a success; Graça and I most of all.

  In the hours before the show, five Blue Moon boys squeezed into taxis along with their instruments and, in the cars’ trunks, a stack of neatly folded tuxedos. The boys waved good-bye to me and Vinicius on the sidewalk outside my boardinghouse. As soon as they left, we ran upstairs, where Graça was taking her sweet time in the bathroom. She’d disappeared that entire afternoon, insisting she needed privacy before the show. I knocked on the door.

  “There’re dressing rooms at Urca,” I said. “You don’t have to get dolled up to ride in a taxi.”

  “Just shut up!” Graça yelled back.

  There was wildness in her voice, a desperation that made her words a plea rather than a command. Vinicius and I glanced at each other.

  “Open the door,” I said, my voice as gentle as I could muster.

  “I can’t.”

  There was a hiccup, then a sob. Water ran in the sink.

  “Graça?”

  “Oh, God! I want to die!”

  My heart drummed in my chest. I thought of Riacho Doce, of the river, of Graça in her mother’s driving coat, rocks heavy in her pockets.

  “Open the goddamn door!” I yelled.

  The lock clicked. Graça sat naked on the closed toilet, her face streaked with tears, the skin around her eyes puffy. Her hairline was red and raw, as if she’d scrubbed it with steel wool. Above that, where her soft brown curls used to be, the hair was platinum blond and as stiff as the bristles of a broom.

  “What did you do?” I breathed.

  Vinicius pressed behind me. “Shit,” he muttered.

  I grabbed a towel to cover Graça’s nakedness, though she didn’t seem to care who saw her. She gulped, then stared at the ceiling. “I wanted to be different! I wanted to look like Greta Garbo! It was supposed to be a surprise.”

  I leaned against the bathroom sink, afraid I might be sick. We had ninety minutes until Urca’s curtains lifted.

  Awkwardly, as if moving a mannequin whose limbs might fall and break, Vinicius and I carried Graça to bed and coaxed her into a robe. Then I ordered Vinicius downstairs to phone the only person who could help us.

  Anaïs arrived ten minutes later. Upon seeing Graça, our teacher shook her head. She slapped Graça’s hand away when she tried to scratch her scalp.

  “You cannot have it bleed,” Anaïs said.

  “But it itches like hell,” Graça whined. “I’ve washed it ten times!”

  Anaïs removed a tin of aloe vera paste from her bag and slathered it across Graça’s head. Globs of white-blond hair clumped between Anaïs’s fingers, leaving bare patches across Graça’s scalp. When she’d finished, Anaïs stretched a shower cap over Graça’s head before turning to Vinicius and me.

  “If we dry and style that hair, it will all fall out. It is burned to a crisp, and so is her scalp,” Anaïs said, then turned back to Graça. “It takes three or four sessions to dye hair like yours blond! How much peroxide did you use?”

  Graça fell back on the bed and covered her eyes with her arms.

  “You will have to cancel your show,” Anaïs said.

  “We can’t,” Vinicius replied. “The boys are on their way to Urca. I won’t leave them in the lurch.”

  On the bed, Graça laughed through her stuffed nose, producing a series of clicks and gasps. “The boys are all you fucking care about,” she said.

  “They shouldn’t pay for your stupidity,” Vinicius replied.

  “Don’t call her stupid,” I said, my voice echoing across the room.

  Graça smiled.

  “We can’t cancel,” I said to Anaïs. “If we don’t show up, no one in Rio will hire us again.”

  “And that won’t matter because Lucifer will slit our throats,” Vinicius said.

  “Then you need to find a new singer,” Anaïs replied.

  Graça sat up.

  “No one knows our material,” I said. “We rehearsed a new song.”

  “You know it,” Vinicius said.

  My hands felt fat with blood; my fingers twitched as if each had a heartbeat all its own. I nodded to Anaïs. “She said I shouldn’t be onstage. She said my voice can’t handle it.”

  “Well, here is your chance to prove me wrong,” Anaïs said.

  In one swift leap, Graça stood. “I don’t care if I’m as bald as a baby’s ass. I’m the one who’s singing tonight.”

  “I knew that would get you up,” Vinicius said.

  “It was a trick?” I asked.

  Vinicius’s amusement disappeared from his face. “I was trying to help. I thought . . .”

  A joke. That’s what he believed the possibility of my singing alongside him and the boys was. I felt a stab of embarrassment so sharp I winced. My hands balled into fists. I was back in Riacho Doce’s mill during harvest, where the heat seared your face and those great, foaming vats of liquid sugar threatened to overflow and maim anyone near them. Graça knew that mill, too.

  She shoved Vinicius aside and stood in front of me, smelling of peroxide and aloe. Slowly, as if she feared I might buck, she put her tiny hands over my fists and gripped them tightly. Then she came close, her face nearly touching mine, like we were back in our shared bed trading secrets.

  “Hey, Dor?” she whispered. “Look at me. That’s it. Don’t be mad at him, it’s all my fault. I messed things up real good this time. But you know how much I want to sing up there, on that fancy stage. You’re the only one in the world who knows. At least one of us should get to do it, right? I don’t want to be a joke up there. I don’t want people to laugh at me. I need you.”

  I took long, deep breaths, the way Anaïs had taught us. I felt the warmth of Graça in front of me, her mouth close, her breath even with mine.

  I need you.

  I’d become what I’d never dreamed of being, what no one dreams of being: I’d become necessary, like a bolt in a lock or a screw in a great machine.

  I looked up.

  “Can we get one of your hats on her?” I asked Anaïs. “The biggest, showiest one you’ve got?”

  Anaïs shook her head. “No singer wears a hat on a stage. It is disrespectful. And no hat will hide her entire head. Only a shower cap will do that. Or a turban. And only Baianas wear turbans.”

  Graça’s eyes met mine. There was, in that moment, a kind of telepathy between us—the kind that appears only after a decade of shared experience forges the deepest knowledge of the person in front of you. We thought of Carnaval. Of Auntie Ciata. Of the Salvador docks. How glorious the Baianas were. How regal.

  It was madness, of course. But what else did we have?

  * * *

  —

  For Urca’s grand reopening, Joaquim Rolla hired a fleet of water taxis to ship tourists from twenty cruise ships to the new casino. Light-haired, sunburned men and women crowded the casino’s atrium, twice the size of Riacho Doce’s mill. Flowering white bushes were trimmed into perfect squares, like giant sugar cubes. At the end of the atrium path were massive stone columns marking the entrance to the Grill Room.

  Instead of the traditional velvet curtain, the Grill’s stage had a curtain covered in thousands of round mirrors, each the
size of a coin, that shimmered like a waterfall and would part to reveal whatever artist was behind it. Tourists packed the Grill Room’s worst tables. At the best ones—closest to the stage—were the kinds of moneyed and powerful citizens Rolla had promised Mayrink he would deliver. Most had come out of curiosity: to see what kind of gaudy monstrosity President Gegê’s rumored friend had built with money made of dubious origins. Rolla’s hope—and ours, too—was to turn the curiosity of Rio’s elite into acceptance, even wonder.

  From my place near the stage, I stared numbly at the audience. The young socialites wore headpieces with little jewels that dotted the centers of their foreheads. Their gowns were so elaborately beaded, I wondered how they could walk under the weight. Beside them sat their mothers and grandmothers, wearing fur stoles despite the heat. (Rolla’s newly installed refrigerated air machine was fickle and cut on and off all night.) Tuxedoed record executives and department store moguls squinted at the act onstage. Violinists, a piano player, and a man with a cello accompanied a thick-necked soprano as she sang an aria from a Brazilian opera commissioned by Old Gegê. The president was not in attendance, but several of his most trusted advisers were.

  My stomach turned; we were the third samba act in the show, sandwiched between a magician and Aracy Araújo, that copycat. She, of all people, would close the entire showcase. She was supposed to be the folk act that the crowd would remember.

  Graça and Anaïs were locked in the tiny Urca dressing room, too small to fit all three of us. The thought of Graça leaving that room made me queasy.

  Before going to Urca that night, we were like thieves, grabbing Graça’s red dress and stuffing into a pillowcase every piece of costume jewelry she had collected. Then the four of us rushed to La Femme Chic, where Anaïs gathered a bolt of thick red taffeta, some milliner’s wire, and a handful of pins. Vinicius helped us carry these belongings to Urca, but he had no clue what we planned to do with them.

  Backstage at Urca, a nervous little man ran back and forth, making sure each act was ready for its debut. Ten minutes before our curtain call, Graça was still locked in her dressing room with Anaïs. The Blue Moon boys appeared, looking dapper in their blue tuxedos. Vinicius had slicked back his thick mane, showing off his sideburns and sharp cheekbones. I couldn’t look him in the eyes.

  Onstage, the busty soprano left and the magician now commanded the audience’s attention. Near the Blue Moon boys and me, the talent manager dabbed his forehead with a hankie and then waved it in the air as a signal to us that we would take the stage next.

  Behind me, I heard the click of high heels. Vinicius gasped and used my shoulder to steady himself. Little Noel nearly dropped his drum.

  Graça’s red evening gown was strapless, with a heart-shaped bodice. The gown’s skirt swelled from her waist like a bell. On her wrists were every bracelet and bangle she owned. Her lips were bright red. Her eyes were no longer puffy or pink. Her burned head was hidden under a swirl of red taffeta that Anaïs had expertly tucked and pinned until it rose up in a turban.

  Graça raised her arms and smiled. “What’s the matter, boys? Haven’t you seen a Baiana before?”

  It was not Carnaval, a holiday when the risqué and dangerous were celebrated. It was a day like any other in Brazil in 1938, when a woman dressing as a Baiana onstage—not as a joke or a costume, but as a powerful, beautiful kind of dress—was unthinkable.

  “What game are you playing?” Vinicius asked, then faced me. “That’s your solution?”

  Graça’s arms dropped. Her bracelets clattered. “This is no game.”

  “Miss Salvador!” the stage manager called, weaving past the Blue Moon boys and me. When he saw Graça his eyes grew so wide, I thought he was having a nervous fit. I think the man would have been less shocked if Graça had appeared naked. He swallowed hard before speaking. “I won’t be able to allow this.”

  Graça’s smile disappeared. “Why in hell not?”

  “This is a refined house!” the stage manager said, his voice high. “We have diplomats in attendance. We have the president’s cousin at the front table! We are expecting attire that’s a bit more—”

  “Boring,” Graça interrupted.

  “I was going to say ‘ladylike,’” the stage manager said, his cheeks flushed. “But maybe you northeastern matutas don’t understand that.”

  “You saying she doesn’t look like a lady?” Bonito yelled, startling us all. Our soft-spoken cuíca player breathed hard, his hands in fists at his side. “Are you saying my mother and sisters aren’t respectable when they dress like this?”

  I turned to the stage manager. “Give us a minute?”

  “A minute’s all you’ve got,” the manager said. “If she’s not decent by the time that magician’s finished, I’m pulling your act.”

  “Decent?” Graça called after him. “I’m more covered up than those broads in the crowd.”

  Vinicius sighed. “We’ve only got three minutes to win them over. They’re going to spend the entire time paying attention to the fucking outfit, and not the music. If we won’t change her clothes, then we need more time out there.”

  He and Graça looked at me. Vinicius was right; one song would never be enough time for Graça to charm the audience into accepting the Baiana and then forgetting her, to focus on Graça’s voice and our music.

  “I’ll get you more time,” I said.

  “How?” Kitchen asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Graça interrupted. “Dor will do it. So are we shaking those stiffs up, or not?”

  The Blue Moon boys exchanged looks. Tiny shrugged. “Fuck it all to hell,” he said. “Let’s make their jaws drop.”

  There was a scattered round of applause. Then the MC announced: “And now some popular folk music! Straight from Lapa’s hippest clubs, we now present Miss Sofia Salvador and the Blue Moon Band!”

  From behind the mirrored curtain, I saw guests whisper and shrug. The stage manager made his way toward us, his face as red as Graça’s gown. Before he could snatch her back, Graça ran onto the stage. The boys followed her.

  I caught Vinicius’s arm. “Whatever happens out there, or back here,” I said, “just keep playing.”

  He paused, then kissed my cheek and stepped through the mirrored curtain.

  There was, at first, an eerie quiet. Graça’s bracelets clanged and chimed. The Grill Room’s many mirrors seemed to sap all of Graça’s color, making her pale. The boys and Vinicius arranged themselves in a semicircle behind her and began to play. Graça’s first notes came out shaky. The instruments overpowered her. Graça’s face instantly registered the shock of hearing her voice so weak, but she did not falter or begin again. She kept singing.

  Every audience—even the most refined—looks forward to risk. Risk that there will be an error, that the performer’s talent will not reach the bar set by the song itself. So the singer must play with losing control, but never truly lose it. In order for Graça to do this, I had to buy her time.

  * * *

  —

  Other acts congregated behind the curtain to gawk at Graça and the boys onstage. I pushed my way past them and ran back to the dressing rooms, barging into five rooms before I found her. Aracy wore the same schoolgirl’s white blouse and wide skirt that Graça once wore, but the top buttons of her shirt were open and her face was thick with makeup. She faced the mirror and dabbed a powder puff across her cheeks.

  “You’re in the wrong place,” she said, eyeing me.

  “No,” I replied. “You’re the one I’m looking for.”

  “I’ve heard about you,” Aracy said. “I don’t go that route, sister.”

  I plucked the powder puff from her fingers. “You’re not my sister.”

  Aracy tried to grab the puff back. I moved it from her reach. She tried again. I moved it again and then grabbed Aracy’s wrist.

  “I’ll
scream if you try something on me!” she said.

  “Be real quiet and I won’t break anything,” I said, twisting her wrist.

  “I’ve got to get out there,” she said. “I’m closing the show.”

  “Not tonight you’re not,” I replied, and pushed her away. The dressing room door had a flimsy lock. I turned it, then grabbed a chair and wedged it under the doorknob.

  “What’re you doing?” Aracy asked.

  I stood in front of the chair. “You can give me a private concert.”

  Aracy charged at me, aiming her painted nails at my face, my neck. The elegant little fascinator Anaïs had made me for the show went crooked, its pins tugging at my hair. I grabbed Aracy’s forearm and twisted it behind her until she cried out. Then I turned her around, her back to my chest, my other arm around her in a bear hug. We both faced the mirror. Aracy’s lipstick had smeared. There was a red streak across the yellow silk of my gown.

  “My band will look for me,” she said. “And the stage manager, too. I’ll tell them you kidnapped me. They’ll break down this door.”

  “You’re going to tell them you’re real sick,” I said. “And you can’t come out.” She twisted and bucked in my arms again and I held her, like Old Euclides used to hold down injured donkeys at Riacho Doce. After a few seconds Aracy, like those donkeys, tired. I looked at the dressing room clock; Graça and the boys would be improvising a second song by now.

  There was a knock at the door. I could feel Aracy’s chest rise and fall under the weight of my arm. I tightened my hold.

  “Madame Lucifer is my friend,” I whispered, staring at Aracy’s reflection in the dressing room mirror. “You ever hear of a club owner called Little Tony? I don’t want to see what Madame Lucifer would do to your pretty face if you make a peep right now.”

  Aracy stared at me in the mirror. The knocking continued. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. She did as I’d ordered, telling her band that she was sick, and to go away. The knocking stopped. Aracy tilted her face toward mine.

  “You’re a Big Foot,” she said. “I’ll tell everyone you forced me.”