“Me too,” Graça whispered. And then she began to say the words to a song we’d never forgotten:
“At the end of my street,
the ocean laps,
the ocean laps.
Above it I see a piece of the moon,
a sliver of my destiny.”
I sighed, my breath hot against Graça’s hair. I began to say the song’s words, too, remembering them exactly as Graça remembered. Our voices rose, little by little. We began to sway together like two drunks at the end of a long night. Graça’s voice skipped ahead of mine, higher and more melodic. But melody can be bare and lonesome without a harmony, without a few supporting notes adding richness and contrast, like the background of a painting or the set in a movie. So we did not try to keep up with each other, but sang in our own way, together.
“Where is my destiny?
Where is my home?
Will I never have a place in this world?
Will I always be alone?”
When we finished, there was quiet. The chatter on the deck below us had hushed. The clinking glasses and conversation in the dining room behind us had stopped. We heard only the waves lapping against the ship, and then, from the deck below us, clapping. We looked over the rail. Men and women smiled up at us, applauding. One man jammed two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Graça giggled and waved. Behind us, there was more clapping. Chuck Lindsay smiled and applauded, along with the Blue Moon boys.
“Mr. Chuck asks you to come inside,” the translator said. “There is a piano.”
I held fast to Graça’s waist. We had, for a moment on that deck, returned to our girlhood selves, singing together in front of the record player. I knew the moment would last only as long as the song, but I was still disappointed when Graça laughed, nodded, and unhooked herself from me. She headed toward the door, toward Lindsay and Vinicius and the boys, until Senhor Pimentel appeared. Graça stopped. Her father stood beside the others, but his expression was not one of surprise or amusement. His face was a rigid mask of rage. Graça took a small step back, afraid.
It was that step that made me see what I’d been blind to before: the choice between me and Senhor Pimentel wasn’t up to Graça. It wasn’t even a choice. Never having a parent myself, I’d been naive to think I could compete with the man who had held her on his lap, dispensing and withdrawing his affections as he saw fit. Even the law was on his side: as long as the Senhor was alive, he would own Graça like a farmer owns a cow and he could sell her talents as if they were meat. He would not assert his ownership outright, knowing that Graça would buck against such authority. No, he would do much worse—he would make her afraid. He would wield his affections and his disapproval and make her doubt herself, her talent, her accomplishments. He would separate her from Blue Moon, and from me, until he was the only soul left to guide her.
Judge me if you’d like. Say that I was as bad as Senhor Pimentel in my struggle to control Graça. Maybe this is true. I’ve had many lonely years to wipe the dust from old memories, to reexamine them, to turn motives around and around, looking for the truest one. What I eventually did, I did out of fear. But I also did it out of love.
So that night, when Graça took a step back, I placed a hand on her shoulder and pushed her forward. “Go on,” I ordered. “Get in there and knock them dead.”
Inside, I watched her sing. I watched Senhor Pimentel stew. I watched Chuck Lindsay scoot to the edge of his chair as he listened to Graça and silently calculated her worth. I stayed quiet as we bobbed back to shore in the water taxi. I resisted Vinicius’s offers to tell him what was wrong. During my few, precious hours of sleep that day, I dreamed the same dream over and over: Senhor Pimentel in Riacho Doce’s parlor, pretending to strike me and then laughing in my face. And when I woke early, I made sure not to disturb Graça as I put on my clothes and left to find Madame Lucifer.
* * *
—
On the shelf behind his desk were ten trophies from Lapa’s Carnaval Costume Contest; Madame L. had won first place every year he’d entered. I stared at those trophies—with their winged bronze women aiming swords at the sky—and blurted everything about Senhor Pimentel and his speech to me at the Lion’s house.
When I finished, Madame L. offered me a glass of water. Only when I’d finished drinking did he speak.
“Success is like honey. It can attract the bees but brings out the rats and the flies, too. The way I see it, Miss Dores, we have a problem. And we have to decide if we’re going to deal with it the Lapa way or the Santa Teresa way.”
“What’s the difference?” I asked.
“You played at the Lion’s place. You saw his neighborhood. Up there, everybody’s polite as can be. In Santa Teresa they wait things out. They sit in their mansions and write letters to make their threats, and then they have tea and wait for their problems to run away from them. Your Graça came from people like this. Her daddy is betting he can scare you and then wait you out. But you and me, Miss Dores, we’re not from that set of people, are we? You and me, we can’t afford to wait.”
“I can’t kick him out,” I said. “He’ll go to the police, or to some judge, and say Graça’s his ward. And then he’ll kick the rest of us out.”
Madame L. nodded. “What do you want, then?”
“I want him to leave us alone.”
Madame Lucifer and I looked at each other across his desk. I was frustrated by his silence and slightly unnerved by it, too. But I would not look away from him, and I would not speak again until he had. We were taking stock of each other. Or, more accurately, Madame Lucifer was taking stock of me. It was a different kind of communication, where words become both useless and dangerous.
“I never turn my back on a true friend,” he said, minutes later. “But you have to ask for my help.”
My tongue felt gritty and dry in my mouth, as if it was coated in sand.
“Help me,” I said, and as soon as I did, a great heat rose within me and swelled into my cheeks, the tips of my ears, the top of my skull. I was back in Riacho Doce, hiding in the dark, watching men hold torches to the cane. It was the only way to get a good harvest, the only way to root out the snakes and scorpions hiding inside. The cane needed to burn so that it could grow back stronger. Of course, once you set something alight, there are no guarantees. You can put up breaks, hills of sand, roads as wide as two trucks. You tell yourself that it can be controlled, monitored, hemmed in. But fire jumps. It moves. It dances. Like any force of nature, it has no scruples, only need.
Madame L. nodded. “Let’s have a drink together—the three of us. And make sure her daddy has his bags packed.”
* * *
—
The next night, while Graça and the boys performed at Urca, I snuck away and met Senhor Pimentel for drinks. The fact that he accepted my invitation without hesitation or curiosity showed how confident he was in his own plans; I suppose he believed I was going to argue for my right to remain at Graça’s side.
Before we met for drinks, I’d asked Vinicius for the key to his apartment, which he still reluctantly shared with Senhor Pimentel. Vinicius hesitated before handing me the key.
“You forget something there?” he asked.
“My notebook,” I said without looking him in the eye. “I can’t find it. I thought I might’ve left it at your place.”
I told the matron at Vinicius’s building that he’d forgotten an instrument and had sent me to fetch it. She’d seen me come and go with Vinicius before and let me upstairs without argument. Inside, I stepped carefully inside the space Vinicius had curtained off for Senhor Pimentel. Under his cot, I found the small, scuffed valise Senhor Pimentel had brought with him from Recife. My hands shook as I opened the armoire he and Vinicius shared. I froze once when a car honked its horn on the street below, and again when the building’s pipes rattled. I was, suddenly, Jega again, rifling throu
gh the Senhor’s things. I had to stop, close my eyes, and tell myself to think clearly.
I filled the valise with a few dress shirts, cuffs, ties, and two new suits that Graça had bought him. I added a pair of shoes, his tin of hair pomade, and his shaving kit. Finally, I found an envelope stuffed with money and put that in the suitcase, too. Then I snapped the valise shut and carried it to a taxi downstairs.
Madame Lucifer had suggested the bar, although Senhor Pimentel didn’t know this. The dive was in far-out Ipanema, near the lagoon. It was very late and the bar was empty except for an unshaven bartender, and a burly pair of men who resembled our former Nymphette fans at Little Tony’s. I ordered a beer and sat in the corner. My tabletop was sticky. I placed the suitcase on the floor between my feet.
Before long, Senhor Pimentel ambled in. The burly men glanced at him, then away. He wore a dove-gray suit, the linen so fine it was practically sheer. The diamond sugar cube was a brilliant dimple in the middle of his silk tie. Senhor Pimentel smiled and sat across from me, then motioned to the bartender, who ignored him.
“This a place you frequent?” he asked, his smile gone.
“My first time here, actually.”
Senhor Pimentel looked longingly at my beer. I wrapped my hand around the warm glass.
“Well, here I am,” Senhor Pimentel said. “What do you want?”
“I’d like to talk,” I said.
Catching sight of the suitcase at my feet, Senhor Pimentel’s smile returned. “You running away, Jega?”
Madame Lucifer arrived. He tipped his hat to the two other men and glided to our table. “Miss Dores,” Lucifer said. “I’m glad we can all have a drink together before we head out.”
Senhor Pimentel examined Madame L., no doubt noticing that, except for the colors, their suits were identical, made by the same tailor.
“Who the hell are you?” Senhor Pimentel asked.
Madame L.’s smile remained wide but his eyes narrowed. “You didn’t order a drink for our friend, Miss Dores?”
Madame L. held up two fingers. The bartender immediately poured two rums and delivered them to our table. Senhor Pimentel stared warily at the glass in front of him.
“You should drink,” Madame L. said. “I’ll wait.”
“Wait for what?” Senhor Pimentel asked.
“Until you finish.”
Senhor Pimentel looked at me, then at Madame Lucifer, then back again. “What’s the story here, Jega?”
“Jega?” Madame L. said, and laughed. “Who on earth is that? I don’t see any jegas around here. But I do see an ass.”
Senhor Pimentel rose. Madame L. barred his exit from our table.
“Finish your drink,” Madame L. ordered. “You’ll need it.”
“For what?” Senhor Pimentel shouted. “Get out of my way.”
Madame L. sighed, bored. Behind him, the two men rose from their stools and stood on either side of Lucifer. Senhor Pimentel quieted.
A lifetime later, Vinicius and I went to a bullfight in Seville and when I saw how swiftly and gracefully the matador stabbed the long, barbed sticks into the bull’s shoulders, I thought of that bar and those men, how quickly one of them produced a bottle of rum from behind his back, cocked his arm, and smashed it over Senhor Pimentel’s head.
I covered my eyes. Glass skittered across the bar’s tiled floor. The front of my dress was wet with rum. Madame Lucifer muttered, “At least it’s clear,” and wiped his lapels with a handkerchief. The bartender had disappeared. The two men heaved Senhor Pimentel from the floor. His eyes flickered open, then closed. At his hairline was a deep scarlet gash. Senhor Pimentel’s head bobbed forward. Red droplets pinpricked his linen suit.
My foot was slick inside my shoe; my beer, knocked over in the scuffle, pooled on the table and dribbled onto my feet and the suitcase, forgotten under the table.
The men stood on either side of Senhor Pimentel and wrapped his arms around their necks, as if they were drinking buddies escorting a friend home—a wealthy friend, in one of Rio’s finest suits. The sugar cube glinted between the folds of his loose tie. I snatched up the suitcase.
“Wait!” I called, startling us all.
I blocked the men’s path. Madame Lucifer glared at me. Before I could speak, he reached forward and tugged the sugar cube from Senhor Pimentel’s tie and held it in his fist.
“There’s no waiting now,” Madame L. said as his men dragged Senhor Pimentel out of the bar and into the night.
* * *
—
I took to my bed. My head ached as if I’d spent the night drinking, when really I’d scurried around Ipanema throwing the contents of Senhor Pimentel’s forgotten suitcase into rubbish bins—except the envelope of money, which I’d stuffed under my mattress. I imagined Madame L. and his men dumping Senhor Pimentel on a freighter bound for Recife. He’d wake up disoriented, his head pounding, his wallet empty and blood polka-dotting his suit, and maybe he’d recall what happened the night before, maybe not. Maybe he’d think he’d been robbed on the way to the bar. But eventually, he’d realize that it was no coincidence that he was on that boat, bound north. He’d look for something he could trade with the captain to make him turn the boat around. He’d look for his precious diamond pin, and wouldn’t find it. Lucifer had taken it precisely to prevent Senhor Pimentel from bartering his way back to Rio. This is the story I told myself, even though I knew it wasn’t true.
Senhor Pimentel didn’t return to Vinicius’s apartment the next day. Graça thought her father was on a bender at first, until Vinicius knocked on our door and said that Senhor Pimentel had cleaned out his closet. At Vinicius’s apartment, Graça inspected the empty hangers, the open drawers. Graça rifled through them, seeing what was gone and what wasn’t. Then Graça sat on Senhor Pimentel’s unmade bed and covered her eyes. She wasn’t crying, just still. Vinicius and I sat on either side of her. After a few minutes she spoke, her hands still over her eyes.
“He didn’t take his favorite suit,” she said. “He took the money.”
“You gave him money?” I asked.
“Never mind,” Graça said, taking her hands away from her eyes.
“How much money was it?” Vinicius asked. “Maybe he’s trying to get the farm back?”
“It wasn’t a farm,” Graça snapped. “It was a fucking plantation ten times the size of Lapa. He couldn’t buy it back even if he wanted to.” Graça craned her head back and stared at the ceiling. “I know he was a drunk old snob, but I liked having him around. It was nice to have someone on my side.”
“We’re on your side,” I said.
Graça shook her head. “Not always. Most of the time you’re on each other’s sides. But Papai was always in my corner.”
“Because you paid him,” I said.
Graça glared at me. “So what? It was still fucking nice.”
Then she heaved herself from the bed and locked herself in Vinicius’s bathroom.
“Did you find your notebook?” Vinicius whispered.
I thought of Senhor Pimentel’s suitcase stuffed into a trash bin. I thought of Madame L. and those men, dragging him through the bar’s doorway. I forced myself to stare Vinicius square in the eyes.
“No,” I replied. “It wasn’t here.”
* * *
—
Five days later, a police lieutenant and an officer appeared backstage at Urca. A body had been found in the lagoon. The corpse was badly swollen but it wore a suit made by the city’s best tailor. Thinking the dead man could be someone important, the normally uninterested and bumbling police questioned the tailor, who looked in his records and matched the number on the suit’s metal nameplate to his client Sofia Salvador.
“Tailor said he made suits for a relative of yours,” the lieutenant, an older man with a thick mustache, said. “We’ll need you to identify the body.
”
Graça stumbled into her dressing room and closed the door. The Blue Moon boys stood along the room’s edges, quiet; none of them liked or trusted police. That left only me to deal with the officers. I grabbed Vinicius’s arm.
“Go check on her,” I said. “She can’t be alone.”
Vinicius obeyed, disappearing behind Graça’s door.
“You can see Miss Salvador’s upset,” I said to the police, my stomach in so many knots it was hard to stand upright. “What happened to the man, in the lagoon?”
The lieutenant shrugged. “Drunks fall in all the time. We pull one out every other day if you can believe it. This one was better dressed than most.”
“Even the rich can’t hold their liquor,” I said.
“Especially the rich,” the lieutenant said, a faint smile creeping across his lips.
“I’d hate to have the newspapers bothering Miss Salvador during a time like this,” I said. “If you could keep this low-profile, she’d be grateful to you and so would the casino. They always pay off-duty officers to advise them on security issues.”
“Newspapers are a bunch of gossip rags,” the officer said. “I don’t even look at them.”
I handed the officers front-row passes to Sofia Salvador’s next five shows. I thought of the driver who’d stolen an extra loaf of sweet-flour bread and then disappeared back when Graça and I were still Lucifer’s delivery girls; I thought of Little Tony, his face forever disfigured. And I imagined the sugar cube pin on the shelf in Madame L.’s office, alongside his many trophies. As soon as the police left, I ran into the band’s bathroom and vomited.
* * *
—
After our trip to the morgue, Graça, Vinicius, and I went to Lapa’s best undertaker. With the money I’d given her—the money I’d taken from Senhor Pimentel’s envelope—she bought a velvet-lined coffin and space in a posh mausoleum in Rio’s Saint John the Baptist Cemetery.
The Air You Breathe Page 28
