The Air You Breathe

by Frances De Pontes Peebles

  In the months after the war, entertainment was all sugar and no spice. America’s greatest crooner was forced to sing a song where he barked like a dog. Serious actors were expected to slip on banana peels for laughs. And Sofia Salvador danced and sang in her sparkling skirts and belly-baring shirts, though she moved slower, and her figure was thinner in a gaunt, shrunken kind of way, making her costumes seem burdensome to her. In the very few postwar films she made, Blue Moon is still behind her, though they seem less like a cheerful band and more like bored orderlies keeping an eye on their patient.

  A few of the Blue Moon boys were saving up to go back home—or to whatever Brazil had become during our five-year absence. Money was tight because fewer films meant longer breaks from Fox. Banana, Bonito, and Little Noel took gigs composing music for Disney cartoons, hoping to make enough money for three tickets to Rio. Kitchen stopped sleeping at Bedford Drive and began to haunt the clubs on Central Avenue, learning bebop and jazz, and teaching the other musicians elements of samba. Tiny took up with a Disney secretary and we barely saw him. And we all took something to get us through those bleak months after our Fruity Cutie fight: liquor, sweet flour, bennies, Demerol, Nembutal, codeine.

  We still read the Lion’s newspapers, though there were no more stories about Sofia Salvador and Blue Moon; Gegê had taken their place as an example of disappointment and loss. The end of the war brought images of liberation and new democracies in Europe; Old Getúlio couldn’t stop this fever from reaching his doorstep. His military men deposed him. His precious Estado Novo was replaced by a new constitution and real elections. Eurico Gaspar Dutra became Brazil’s first democratically elected president in fifteen years.

  The United States and Brazil were once again fast friends, while Russia became a common enemy. The House Un-American Activities Committee issued subpoenas to suspected communists in the film industry. In Hollywood, there were massive union strikes, followed by claims from the studios that the strikers were pinkos and queers, slurs that became interchangeable. The vice squad raided the Plaza Hotel’s bar and arrested Sandy, my old flame, and dozens of other “sapphically inclined” women, dragging them to jail in their evening gowns and stoles. Union strikes suspended Fox’s shooting schedule, which put the brakes on our meager salaries. We couldn’t pay rent at Bedford Drive. We talked about selling some of Sofia Salvador’s costume jewelry, and maybe picking up a few shows in Las Vegas, which had become a popular venue after the war. The trouble was, Graça refused to go there.

  “I’m not playing for a few tumbleweeds in a fucking desert,” she declared.

  When Chuck Lindsay called us into his office, we steeled ourselves to be dropped from his roster of clients. Instead, he waved a yellow telegram in his manicured hand.

  “Aerovias Brasil wants to hire you!” he said, incredulous.

  “For an ad?” Graça asked.

  Lindsay shook his head. “To ride in a plane from Miami to Rio. It’ll be the easiest money you’ve ever made.”

  Aerovias was a Brazilian airline that had helped the United States during the war by running cargo flights. In return for its service, Aerovias had been granted the first international passenger flights to Brazil. Air travel was considered exotic and somewhat perilous in those days; passengers had to be reassured. Who better than Sofia Salvador to show potential U.S. passengers that flying could be a party in the skies? And what better publicity could Aerovias get in Brazil than by being the company that returned Sofia Salvador home to face her countrymen? Part of the deal dangled before us was a homecoming show, played in Rio after our arrival. Aerovias would bankroll it, along with the Lion’s network of newspapers.

  “Where will we play this show?” I asked Lindsay. All of Brazil’s casinos had been closed thanks to the new president’s anti-gambling law. I pictured Graça and the boys forced to perform in a small Lapa cabaret or in an empty airplane hangar outside the city, as a kind of penance for their rise and fall. Graça must have had the same worries, because before Chuck could answer me, she grabbed my arm and said:

  “We’re doing it at the Copa. I won’t set foot on any other stage. It’s the Palace, or nothing.”

  The Palace, that ivory fortress in Copacabana that dictated taste and style. The place that had shunned us for being a samba band. The place that, years before, Graça and I had admired from our spots on the beach one morning. She’d had a black eye from one of her knuckle draggers, and she’d stared at the Copa and called it her ticket to the moon.

  As we crowded in Chuck Lindsay’s Hollywood office, I thought Graça’s demand was foolish—surely such a request was impossible to fulfill, and Graça’s stubbornness would lose us the only gig we’d been offered in months, as well as the possibility of redeeming ourselves back home. Later, I realized she was right to demand the moon and the stars. After the war, the writing on the wall was quite clear: the United States and its studios had tired of Sofia Salvador. Fox’s racehorse had been ridden until she was hobbling, and was easily replaced. Technicolor was out, black-and-white was in. Musicals were passé and spy dramas were becoming all the rage. Where did we have to go but home? And when we made our comeback in Rio, we couldn’t do it on a small stage with heads bowed. We would do it on the very stage that had been denied us for so long. Graça wasn’t after redemption; she wanted revenge, and resurrection.

  * * *

  —

  She posed with the beaming pilot. She waved and smiled as she ascended the metal stairs into the plane’s cabin. She lifted a heeled foot and kissed the plane’s metal side as if it was a leading man in a film. She sat in the cockpit and winked for the cameras. She was a subdued version of Sofia Salvador, in a crimson traveling suit with blue piping, to match the Aerovias logo.

  “They can’t expect me to wear one of my Fox getups—I won’t even fit through the plane’s door!” Graça had complained when Aerovias expressed disappointment at her insistence on wearing “normal clothes.” She made one concession: dangling from her ears like children’s toys were specially commissioned earrings in the shape of Aerovias planes, covered in rhinestones.

  When we boarded, we were awarded stamped certificates as if we’d already accomplished something just by entering the plane. Sofia Salvador posed with her certificate for the bevy of photographers accompanying us on the flight. Then, as soon as the pilot announced our departure, she slipped behind the curtained section reserved for her and the band, unclipped her enormous earrings, threw her hat on the chair beside her, and ordered a whiskey, neat.

  Over the course of the forty-eight-hour flight, we’d empty the plane’s supply of whiskey two times over. We flew only during daylight hours. At night, we stopped in Port of Spain and then in Belém, where we slept in hotels while the plane refueled and loaded its pantry with more booze. I’d also brought along a rainbow-colored stockpile of pills—bennies, Seconal, Nembutal, and more—hoping to have enough to get me, Graça, and the boys through our trip home.

  The plane ride was bumpy and we were nervous, but not about the flight. This was, we knew, our last adventure together. Kitchen, Banana, Bonito, and Little Noel would remain in Rio when the Aerovias flight returned to Miami. The rest of us planned to be on that plane back to the USA, returning to Hollywood but only temporarily. We had one last commitment with Fox to fulfill, and a house filled with costumes and records to pack up. Where we would send those crates after they’d been packed remained a mystery.

  The closer we came to Rio, the more Vinicius wanted to hash out the Copa’s set list, and the more Graça avoided him. She left our private area to chat with photographers and Aerovias reps; she retreated into the powder room; she faked sleep. Finally, Vinicius cornered her.

  “We can’t wing this show,” he said. “If we want to go home, and stay home, we have to nail it.”

  “Do I look stupid to you?” Graça asked. “You think I want to bomb?”

  “You’re sure acting like
it,” Vinicius replied. “We don’t have a set list. We haven’t practiced—”

  “I don’t need practice,” Graça interrupted.

  “Oh yeah? How long has it been since we’ve done a live show? This isn’t a Fox set. We won’t get a second take at the Palace.”

  Graça slapped her tray table. Her whiskey tumbler wobbled and tipped. “Can’t you be happy for once?” she whispered, glancing at the curtains that separated us from the photographers. “We’re riding in a goddamn airplane and getting paid more than President Dutra for it, and you’re still complaining? You’re as dull as a hangnail.”

  “And you’re a fool,” Vinicius said, his voice cool. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us; I bet you money that Copa crowd wants us to crash and burn. And you don’t care. Well, if you want to hang yourself on that stage, fine by me. But don’t drag the rest of us into it.”

  Graça smiled. “How terrible—I’m getting you a first-class trip back home. I’m dragging you onto the best stage in Brazil. What a tragedy. Let me give you a little advice, querido: Don’t you worry about me at the Copa. Worry about your little Ipanema show with Dor over there. What’s your new band’s name again? Ketchup and Mustard?”

  “Tuna and Mayo,” Tiny called out.

  “Oil and Water.” Kitchen joined in the fun.

  Graça pointed at me with her thumb. “She’s the one you should be lecturing. Look at her! She’s turning green.”

  The plane bobbed and shook. I closed my eyes. Before we’d left L.A., Madame L. had telephoned to ask if Sal e Pimenta could squeeze in a little debut show at a club in Ipanema, of all places. We had a small but loyal fan base, many of them younger than us by ten years, who would like to see us in person. Madame L. cajoled: it would be nothing fancy, just a small stage, a few lights, two chairs, Vinicius with his guitar, and me. My voice was accepted (if only by Vinicius and a few naive fans) because of its flaws. If this opportunity had arisen years before, I might have felt vindicated, but in that moment I was afraid and angry at myself for this fear. I pretended, for Vinicius’s sake, to be excited and accepted the gig. We would play the night before Sofia Salvador’s big Copa show.

  “I’m not worried about Dor,” Vinicius said as the plane trembled around us. “Our show’s just for fun. It’ll be easy.”

  Graça righted her empty whiskey glass. “And you’re calling me a fool.”

  * * *

  —

  We arrived in the late afternoon, our plane circling Guanabara Bay’s blue waters like a bird coasting in a warm pocket of air. The Blue Moon boys, Graça, and I crowded near the plane’s small windows. Rio lay beneath us in all of her glory: her curving strips of beaches, her ample hills, her jagged and lush patches of forest. We tried to spot Lapa, Copacabana, Catete Palace, and our fingers left greasy spots across the window glass. Many years later, a young musician would see Rio from the air just as we did, and he would compose a famous bossa nova (that quiet, watered-down 1950s offspring of samba that Sal e Pimenta inspired) about its beauty. Each time I heard that song I was terribly annoyed—we should have been the ones to write about touching down in Rio, and it should have been a samba, not a flimsy, insubstantial bossa, because only samba could communicate the mixture of overwhelming elation and gutting disappointment that a return home inevitably brings.

  The airport’s tarmac was empty. There were no eager fans, no cheering crowds holding posters with the message: “Welcome Home, Sofia!”

  “Looks like we didn’t even make the trip,” Graça mumbled as the plane’s door opened with a hiss. A military motorcade swiftly drove us to the Copacabana Palace Hotel.

  “How about a stop in Lapa?” Vinicius said as our black Cadillac sped away from the airport. “For old times’ sake?”

  Before any of us could answer, our stone-faced escort responded. “That’s not on the agenda. We will take you directly to the hotel for interviews.”

  At the Palace Hotel, we were given thirty minutes to freshen up before being escorted by the Aerovias uniformed representatives to the hotel’s ballroom for a press conference. I swallowed two bennies just to stay awake. Graça drank four espressos.

  In the Palace’s mirrored and gilded ballroom, Sofia Salvador and the Blue Moon boys were escorted to a row of chairs behind a vast table. In front of them were dozens of precisely arranged red velvet chairs, all of them empty. A gaggle of reporters milled about in the back of the ballroom. At their center was the Lion.

  His mane of white hair was still full, his eyes still dark and scrutinizing in their gaze. If, in his youth, the Lion might have been cast as a handsome but silent movie extra, in his old age he would have earned a speaking part: the tycoon; the stern head of a sprawling and troubled family; the savvy club owner; the mysterious stranger at a bar who offers the troubled hero a cigarette, then pulls out a pistol and shoots him in the gut.

  “You’re our host again,” Graça said, pressing through the crowd and kissing both the Lion’s cheeks. “I’ll never forget the night I sang in your home. I’m glad my father was still alive to see it.”

  He held her arms and gazed at her. “Stunning. I read that you’d swelled up like a balloon but I didn’t believe it.”

  Graça blinked. Her smile widened. “Don’t believe anything the press says. You boys lie more than politicians.”

  The Lion laughed. “Maybe in the United States, querida.”

  “Liars come in all nationalities,” I said.

  “Ah, Dores! I’m glad to see you’re still loyal to this old showbiz crew. But I hear you have your own band now! What’s it called: Oyster and Pearl?”

  Graça laughed too loudly. “Dor’s a pearl?”

  The Lion shook his head. “You’re the only pearl in this room. Dores has always been the grit.”

  Graça smiled. One of Dutra’s military boys approached and escorted her to a seat at the center of the main table.

  “I’m surprised to see you at such a small event,” I said to the Lion as we watched Graça adjust her hat and smile at the Blue Moon boys, who took seats on either side of her.

  “This is the biggest event all year!” the Lion replied. “Things are dull as dishwater now that old Dutra and his Little Saint wife run the show. But Sofia Salvador coming home? Now that’s a story that sells. I’m glad Aerovias took my advice.”

  “You got Aerovias to hire us?”

  The Lion looked surprised. “You think they’d make this kind of move on their own? It’ll be great publicity for them, no matter what happens. Much better than my papers writing stories about how dangerous their planes are.”

  “And you got the Copa for us, too,” I said.

  “I aim to give you exactly what you want,” the Lion said. “And it was a brilliant idea for a venue; did you come up with it?”

  I shook my head. “You wrote disgusting things about her, about all of us, while we were away.”

  “I didn’t write anything,” the Lion said. “My reporters do their jobs. Don’t tell me you hold a grudge, Dores? I’ve listened to those songs of yours, I’ve paid attention to the words. You know what people want to hear.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We don’t want to hear about someone else’s success and happiness, that only makes us feel bad about our own lots. No, we want to hear about heartbreak and failure and terrible loss, as long as they’re someone else’s.”

  The Lion nodded toward Graça, then left to find his chair. I had no seat, so I quickly moved to the side of the ballroom, beside the silent line of government representatives and Aerovias men. There were two massive doorways to the ballroom, both of them flanked by military men.

  The ballroom smelled of musty drapes and stale coffee. Near the hive of reporters, the Lion whispered to an Aerovias man, then laughed. Sweat prickled my forehead. It was hard for me to keep my foot from tapping. Why had I taken so many bennies? I searche
d the room for a table with a coffee urn and perhaps a pitcher of water, but there was nothing of the sort. The chief officer of the Aerovias publicity team stepped forward.

  “Shall we begin,” he said, his words sounding more like an order than a question.

  The journalists opened their notepads and uncapped their pens. Without raising his hand, a man in the front row began without objection from the others, as if the corps of press boys had rehearsed beforehand.

  “Miss Salvador, how does it feel to be back in Rio?”

  Graça smiled. “Wonderful, of course. I missed it very much.”

  “So you’d forgotten Rio?” the man continued.

  “No,” Graça replied. “Missing isn’t forgetting. How could I ever forget this beach, this sun, this city?”

  Another journalist stood and asked: “People are saying you’re back in Brazil because you can’t get work in the U.S. Is this true?”

  The Aerovias publicity man stepped forward. “Now, boys, we agreed . . .”

  There was tapping—insistent and without rhythm—that echoed across the ballroom. The military men on my right and left turned toward me. Several reporters looked in my direction. I realized it was my heel striking the ballroom’s shining wooden floor. Graça stared at me; she did not look angry at me for interrupting her press conference, but relieved. In the mass of reporters, a man so young he looked as if he’d skipped school to attend the conference stood and cleared his throat.

  “Mr. de Oliveira,” he asked, his voice wavering.

  Vinicius looked up, startled.