The Air You Breathe

by Frances De Pontes Peebles

  “I apologize for the crew, Sofia,” the director said, speaking very slowly. The extra, never taking his eyes from the floor, as if this might alleviate both Graça’s embarrassment and his own, repeated the director’s words in Spanish.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” the director continued. “I am, too. It’s a damn shame we’ll have to do that scene again. That came out better than I’d hoped. I’m going to call makeup in here to get you beautiful again. And do you think, if we leave it very loose, you can make that earring fall inside your dress again? That was hysterical.”

  Graça swallowed. I translated from the extra’s Spanish, though she probably understood as much as I had: He likes what you did. He wants you to stay here and do it again, the same way.

  Graça looked past me at the director and, without hesitation, flashed him her widest smile.

  “Perfect,” the director said. “Zanuck was right about you: you’re going to steal the picture. You’re a riot.”

  * * *

  —

  A joke is a way of dominating a language. You must have timing and fluidity, like a fine musician. None of us—the Blue Moon boys and I—were able to joke in any language but our own. In English, we were quite serious people. This is what happens when you move to a foreign place: either you recoil into yourself, becoming (on the outside at least) a quiet, tense listener, or you make a show of your errors, flaunting them for all to see. Both are attempts to make people comfortable with your otherness. With the first option you make yourself forgettable. With the second, you make yourself entertaining. What choice did Graça have?

  Sofia Salvador filmed her speaking part a second time, doing everything she did the first, only amplified: more waving of hands, more pouting lips, more wide eyes. When the director yelled “Cut!” the cameramen, lighting techs, and sound engineers clapped and whistled. Graça smiled, gave a little bow, and then planted a kiss on the director’s cheek, leaving the red imprint of her lips for all to see. Her earlier shame and her desperate escape plans were eagerly forgotten, and so was I.

  Without a word to Graça or the boys, I limped to the Fox gates and hailed a cab to the Plaza.

  Our hotel’s bar was, I would soon discover, a hot spot for nameless extras and aspiring starlets. On set, they called those girls “Dumb Doras.” These were the nymphs who invaded Fox, MGM, Warner Bros., and other major studios by the dozens each morning to play the parts of coat-check girls, next-door neighbors, nameless clubgoers, and whatever other part required a pretty face and no spoken lines. Some nymphs were tall, others short. Some had waves of chestnut hair pinned up in the latest fashion. Others had hair so blond it was nearly white. Each girl was perfect in her own way, with plenty of penciled eyebrows and creamy, unfreckled skin, and full bosoms balanced above tiny waists.

  I’d managed to down three drinks at the Plaza bar before a Dora asked me for a cigarette. She was short with nut-brown hair that fell in carefully tended waves, just like Graça’s before her pixie cut. She was Graça’s height and build, and wore a dress so tight, it might as well have been a swimsuit with a skirt attached. She caught me admiring her and smiled, revealing a perfect, empty space between her front teeth. I imagined what it might be like to run my tongue across her teeth and into that gap. She was from some western state I’d never heard of before she’d said it: Montana, Wyoming? You could drive right through her hometown and never know you’d been there. That’s what she’d told me, speaking slowly and with some pantomime, and I liked her immediately because she came from nothing and nowhere, and seemed completely unashamed of it. Her name felt something like that western town of her birth: deserted, gritty, simple.

  “Sandy,” I whispered.

  She looked back at me and smiled. “God, I love your accent.”

  An hour later, we were in my hotel room the size of a shoebox. Lights from the hotel’s courtyard shone through the window glass, cutting a yellow square on the rug. Sandy’s brown hair fell in soft waves to her shoulders. Her frame was small, her legs strong. She smelled yeasty and sweet, like a cake just out of the oven. For what seemed like ages, Sandy stared up at me, studying my eyes. I couldn’t tell if she was impressed or having second thoughts. I decided to give her an escape, if she wanted one.

  “If someone from the studio sees us,” I said, the words hard pebbles in my mouth. “You lose your job. And I . . . It would not look fine for my friend . . . Sofia Salvador.”

  Sandy smiled. “Are you kidding? The studios don’t care what we do, as long as the doors are closed. Girls like us can have a good time together. We just can’t do something terribly wholesome like hold hands in the middle of the day. But I don’t want to hold hands now. Do you?”

  I shook my head.

  Her mouth was wide and soft. I tasted the wax of her lipstick, and then, as we opened our mouths for each other, I tasted smoke mixed with peppermint—the kind of red-and-white candy the downstairs bar kept in a bowl. I imagined Sandy rolling the small round candy on her tongue until it dissolved completely.

  She slipped her small hands under my shirt. The hotel bed was a twin—nearly as narrow as a ship’s berth—and we moved as if we were waves on water, a precise rhythm between us. Her dress had a glittering belt and a zipper down its back, the hard bodice cracking open like a candy’s shell. She wore no nylons, only a flimsy pair of underwear that I quickly removed. I cupped my hands to her face, then moved them down her neck to her chest, rising and falling fast under my palms, and then to her soft stomach, and then to her hips, and then farther still, until she’d opened herself to me completely, as slick and as sweet as a papaya wedge that I scooped into my mouth.

  “Appreciate what a wonder the body is!” Anaïs commanded during singing lessons. What is song, she taught us, but folds of muscle inside our throats, made supple by being wet, moving against each other neither too fast nor too slow, neither too hard nor too soft, but with the perfect balance of tension and release in order to set free a sound, a song, from within us.

  It was an escape, though fleeting. An hour later Sandy was gone and I was alone again.

  * * *

  —

  The Plaza’s lobby was empty, its bar quiet. The movie extras and Dumb Doras had gone either home or upstairs to their rooms to prepare for early shoots. I bribed the bartender to smuggle me a bottle of gin and found the hotel’s pool.

  Outside it was chilly. The air smelled of eucalyptus. In the bushes crickets droned, a thousand gossips sharing the same story. I sat alone in the dark, my feet in the pool’s warm water, and stared up at the Plaza, counting its floors until I found the windows to our rooms—three side by side, with little wrought-iron balconies framing them. The balconies were only a few inches deep; like much else in L.A., they were simply for show. My room’s curtains were open. Little Noel’s were drawn, his window dark. In the room Graça and Vinicius shared, the lights were on. When had they returned from Fox studios?

  I lifted the bottle of gin from my lap and took a long swig.

  A silhouette, backlit by the lobby’s lights, stood on the other side of the courtyard. I recognized the familiar slouch, the wide shoulders, the pompadour. He was motionless in the lit doorway for a while before he dove into the darkness, toward me.

  “What are you, a detective?” I asked.

  Vinicius sat, cross-legged, on the concrete beside me. “I asked at the bar. I figured you couldn’t be far.”

  I stared again at Graça’s lit window. “Why aren’t you up there, putting her to bed?”

  Vinicius shrugged. “I’m in the doghouse. I didn’t cater to her whims today like everyone else on earth.”

  The pool’s lights were on. Their reflection shone upon our faces, blue ripples swaying across our cheeks and mouths, making it seem as if we were both trapped underwater.

  “I didn’t cater to her,” I said.

  He laughed. “She wanted to skip t
own and you had your bags packed. You’d abandon us all if she asked you to.”

  “And you wouldn’t? Shit, you already have.”

  Vinicius shook his head. “I don’t want to fight anymore today. Not with you.”

  I handed him the bottle of gin. Vinicius took a long gulp and wiped his mouth.

  “She drives me crazy, too,” he said, running his hands through his hair. “Sometimes it’s like we’re punishing each other—me and her.”

  “For what?”

  “For not being who we want each other to be. She wants me to be like one of those poor bastards in the crowd when she sings—my mouth hanging open, in awe of her all the time.”

  “And you aren’t?” I asked.

  “I am, but there’s only so much a person can take. I want her to listen to me, to understand me like . . .”

  Vinicius placed his hand on my knee. A jolt of heat ran up my thigh, into the pit of my belly. “You have to be better than this,” I said, shaking him off. “Both of you.”

  Vinicius looked confused. “I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry doesn’t do us any good. If we’re going to be a great act, we can’t ever be sorry.”

  “I don’t want to be an act,” he whispered.

  “Then what are we doing here?” I asked, looking around the Plaza’s dark courtyard. “I wondered today if Senhor Pimentel was right. If this movie business isn’t good for her—or maybe she’s too good for it. Can you imagine what her dear papai would do if he saw us here, in L.A., if he saw you two, sharing a bed?”

  “But he can’t see, can he?” Vinicius said, his voice a whisper I could barely hear. “I don’t know why he had that accident or how. But if it means we’re together, then I’m not sad about it.”

  The crickets’ buzzing was unbearably loud. My head seemed to vibrate.

  “Who’s we?” I asked. “That’s a stupid question, isn’t it? You don’t even want to write songs anymore. All those afternoons, I waited . . .” I swallowed hard, trying to control the tremor in my voice. “You think you can just ignore it? You think you can just shove the music aside over and over again like it doesn’t really matter? It won’t wait for you forever. It can’t.”

  Vinicius stared at the pool, then at me. “Don’t go anywhere,” he ordered.

  He ran inside the hotel and returned a few minutes later with his guitar and Kitchen’s extra pair of agogô bells. They were oblong, one large and one small, fused together like fruits petrified on the same vine.

  “Here,” Vinicius said, handing me the bells and their stick.

  “Kitchen won’t like me touching these.”

  “Are you kidding?” Vinicius said. “Kitchen’s happy when any girl plays with his agogôs.”

  I laughed for the first time that day.

  “Should I go to the Dunbar and steal Bonito’s cuíca?” Vinicius asked, smiling. “You can rub it and make it moan.”

  “Oh, boy. Just keep Tiny’s cavaquinho away from me,” I said.

  “It’s small but powerful,” Vinicius replied.

  One by one, we gave each of the boys’ instruments lives of their own. Then Vinicius hummed a few notes while I half sang, half whispered.

  “Samba, for a time you were mine.

  My love, we played so well!

  I held the curve of your cavaquinho,

  I coaxed rhythm from your agogô bells.”

  Sometimes Vinicius found the perfect note, the perfect rhythm for my words, and when this happened I felt warmth wrap itself around my neck and move down my spine. We continued then, moving in unison, nodding at each other, unsure of what might come next but thrilled at the same time. Sometimes there was a corny line or a false note, and Vinicius and I laughed at our clumsiness. But soon we did not stop or giggle or break the rhythm. In this moment, there was a perfect trust between us. If Vinicius wanted softer, I gave him softer. If I wanted slower, he gave me slower. There was no hesitation, only anticipation. We kept moving forward, perfectly in sync, until we came to a natural finish. Then there was quiet.

  Graça’s window facing the pool was open now, its curtains wide, its glass parted. The room inside was still lit but without shadows or movement. When had Graça opened the glass panels? How much had she heard? I felt a sense of satisfaction to have her as our audience but also a strange kind of dread—would nothing be mine alone? When one of us gained, did the other always have to lose?

  * * *

  —

  The next morning at Fox studios we were ushered into an office building, where we followed a matronly woman through a maze of corridors. We arrived, finally, at two large wooden doors. Behind them, a lion’s skin was splayed across the floor. As soon as we entered, we saw the beast’s snarling mouth, its vacant yellow eyes. Around the rug were several oversized leather chairs and a couch as deep as a bed.

  The room’s walls were covered in framed photographs. I recognized famous faces in the photographs, all posing alongside the same man—he was short and mustachioed, with a gap-toothed grin. The same man stood before us, in the flesh, in that massive studio office. He held a long wooden mallet. (This mallet, I would later learn, was for playing polo, a sport that Mr. Zanuck loved almost as much as making movies.) Beside him stood a tall man whose handsomeness seemed almost alien, as if he had been manufactured on Fox’s lot. His toffee-colored skin glowed; his dark eyes were deeply set and sad-looking, as if he was constantly pining for someone. I’d seen his image on movie posters around Fox—Ramon Romero, heartthrob who always played second fiddle to some younger, paler, peppier, and more famous actor on Fox’s roster. He nodded at us in greeting.

  Zanuck’s eyes scanned Graça’s feet, her legs, her hips, her chest, and finally fell upon her face. This examination didn’t seem lascivious. I could picture Zanuck appraising a potential polo horse this way—studying its form, its stance, its musculature.

  “Ramon!” Zanuck shouted, “tell Miss Salvador that she stole the show in Bye, Bye, Buenos Aires. I saw the rushes late last night—you nearly popped off the screen, honey!” A pink bit of tongue flashed through the gap of Zanuck’s front teeth. Ramon dutifully translated the studio chief’s words into Spanish.

  “Let me hear some of that Portuguese,” Zanuck ordered. Ramon sighed, then reiterated the request for us.

  Graça looked at me. “What do I say to him?”

  It was the first time she’d spoken to me since the night before in the trailer, when she’d plotted our new life and then immediately discarded it.

  “Talk about our trip here,” I said. “To the States.”

  Graça’s eyes lit up. She nodded and proceeded to list for Zanuck and Ramon, in Portuguese, all of the amenities of the SS Uruguay. Zanuck sat in his enormous chair and smiled.

  “Wonderful!” he interrupted. “Listen, Miss Salvador, I’m not going to mince any meat with you.”

  I looked at Ramon, worried. “He wants her to eat meat?”

  Ramon laughed, but before he could explain, Zanuck continued, ignoring us.

  “You’re different,” he said. “Every studio in town’s got loads of gorgeous Lupes and Doloreses. Men certainly like them on-screen. But you’ve got a unique look, with that haircut and that mouth. And you’re funny—a real comedienne.”

  Zanuck took a sip from his drink while Ramon spoke. Then Zanuck suddenly shouted: “I want a photograph!”

  His secretary ran from the room and returned with a portable camera. Zanuck heaved himself off of his enormous chair.

  “Come on over,” he ordered. “Don’t be shy.”

  All of us moved toward Zanuck, who put up his stubby hand.

  “Just Sofia,” he said.

  We did not need Ramon to translate. The Blue Moon boys glanced at me, then at one another. Graça stood beside Zanuck, who wrapped an arm around her waist and smiled. There was a pop and then a flash and, for
a moment, Graça disappeared in light.

  TURNED INTO A GRINGA

  Well, they say I’ve turned into a gringa,

  with cases full of cash

  and diamonds on my fingers!

  They say I wring my hands all day,

  and have no time to chat.

  That I can’t stand to hear a cuíca play,

  and that my rhythm’s gone scat.

  ’Cause I’ve turned into a gringa,

  with cases full of cash

  and diamonds on my fingers!

  They say I’ve dyed my hair yellow,

  and coconut milk makes me sick.

  That I only date wealthy fellows,

  and I sign all my checks with lipstick.

  ’Cause I’ve turned into a gringa,

  with cases full of cash

  and diamonds on my fingers!

  Why so much venom and spite

  aimed in my direction?

  When I look into my mirror each night,

  I only see Brazil in my reflection.

  ’Cause I’ll never be a gringa.

  But a little girl from Lapa,

  a simple samba singer.

  As a kitchen girl, I believed that fame meant being a voice on the radio—you were nameless and faceless, but you were heard. In Lapa, fame was popularity, and popularity meant being well-liked. At Urca, fame was not likability but fantasy; it was not about you, but what you created onstage. In Hollywood I learned that all of my previous beliefs were wrong.

  Fame is longing. Not yours, but the audience’s. A star is nothing more, nothing less, than the public face of private desire.

  The biggest stars, like the most successful dictators, fulfill countless desires at once. They are our ever-forgiving parents, trusted friends, fierce lovers, loyal siblings, stern teachers, terrifying opponents. They are everything we aspire to and, sometimes, everything we despise. Of Graça’s many talents, this was either her greatest or her worst, depending on your outlook: she could sense what a crowd wanted, and mold herself into whatever that might be.