And so the House of Swaps came to be, and Madame Brigitte was its prime mentor. The architecture of the building lent itself perfectly to its purpose: to the left of the imposing main entrance there was a gate for carriages, which drove down a lane lined with giant strangler figs and royal palms, all the way to the rear, where two elliptically curved iron staircases took guests directly to the second floor. There were so many trees between these staircases and the small lake that graced the garden that visitors who exited there could rest assured they would not be seen by anyone outside the House.
Madame Brigitte wanted the House to be a secret institution whose existence was known only to those whom it served. Thus, she was not merely satisfied with copying similar establishments, whose doors were essentially always open. She devised a space both open and closed, where women and men could give free rein to the most abstruse desire, immune from social disapproval.
Therefore, discretion was the basic rule. The most common type of clients—men seeking prostitutes, for example—never knew that boys were also available, unless they requested them. Group nights were also promoted in secrecy, and nurses who were not invited did not even suspect they existed.
All sexual idiosyncrasies were kept strictly confidential, and only the parties involved knew about them. Madame Brigitte also catered to risky desires; in such cases, though, it was necessary give the personnel the day off and suspend all activities, which required very high financial compensation, as was the case with the lady who wanted to be with four men at once (Madame Brigitte demanded that she be masked), or the gentleman who enjoyed mistreating young men in uniform (usually foreign sailors, recruited at the piers).
Madame Brigitte trained the girls, developing in them the ability to discover inadmissible drives and propose to clients the most exotic adventures. Therefore, the success of the House of Swaps depended on the selection of its nurses, to which Madame Brigitte gave special importance. She wanted only women of great talent with very reputable pasts. In the case of Fortunata, she had failed in her evaluation of this second trait.
Although it was already too late, after the expert’s visit, Madame Brigitte decided to set the record straight regarding certain matters, even if it meant saying a few harsh words. So, she sent off the letter, addressed to a distant ranch in the vicinity of Encantado.
The letter arrived at its destination, but from there it was forwarded to another address in Europe. It lay there a few months, until the addressee returned from her summer travels. When the answer came—in late September, well after the point where the narrative is now—Madame Brigitte had a big surprise, and an even bigger disappointment.
In fact, Cassia was not Fortunata’s friend. She did not even know Fortunata. She just wanted to leave the life, and sought someone versed in the magic arts of mandiga to win over the heart of the judge, who was a good man and an old client. The sorcerer Rufino demanded a diamond ring, and that she place a person of his own choosing—the prostitute Fortunata—at the House of Swaps.
The minimally experienced reader knows that in police novels, or mystery novels in general—at least when there is an honest relationship between the narrator and his readers—there comes a point when the reader has enough information to solve the mystery.
When the reader intuits that this point has been reached, the reader feels compelled to anticipate the end, guessing the narrative ploy that gives coherence to the plot—usually revealed only in the last pages. Therein lies the pleasure of the literary game.
That is precisely the point our story has reached. Although some facts remain hidden, all the clues have been provided, some directly and others symbolically. Nonetheless, for the expert Baeta, I believe it is still impossible to solve the crime of the House of Swaps.
This was the conclusion that Baeta himself had reached, in the confidential report he prepared and signed for the chief of police in early July.
On June 13th, 1913, at about four o’clock in the afternoon, the secretary of the presidency of the republic arrived at the House of Swaps and was greeted by the prostitute Fortunata. Minutes after they entered the room, Fortunata went downstairs to get two glasses and a bottle of red wine in Dr. Zmuda’s makeshift wine cellar beneath the grand staircase, where, legend has it, there is a secret passageway built by Emperor Pedro I.
The following fact should be emphasized: the nurses at the House at the time saw Fortunata pass, holding the bottle and glasses. So, the fingerprints found on these objects that are not the secretary’s belong to her.
At around 6 p.m., Fortunata passed the Upper Oval Parlor, where her colleagues were gathered. She was in a hurry, and reacted in an uncharacteristically curt manner to a kind gesture, before leaving through the front door. She was wearing a blue taffeta gown and had on the pair of gold earrings shaped like seahorses.
Shortly before eight, taking note of the secretary’s unusually lengthy stay in the room, Madame Brigitte asked someone to wake up their illustrious client, which was when he was found dead, bound tightly to the bedposts, with deep thumb marks on his neck. The police report confirmed the cause of death as asphyxiation, with no signs of robbery.
According to the capoeira, Aniceto, the prostitute’s brother (a fact that did not need documentation due to their extremely similar physiognomy), Fortunata returned to the building where she rented a room, in a hurry, saying she had made a silly mistake and needed to escape.
She left a letter addressed to the House manager, Madame Brigitte, which was never delivered. The sister also left the capoeira money and jewelry, including the famous earrings. Witnesses identified the other pieces as also belonging to the prostitute.
According to forensics, Fortunata would have arrived at Conceição Hill between half past six and twenty to seven—in other words, after dark. The owner of the building did not see the prostitute enter or exit, although she could not remember whether or not she had retired by then. She was unaware of the true profession of her tenant (who had intentionally kept her in the dark) and had never noticed a man staying with her in her room. Although she was forced to admit that Aniceto had described the house perfectly.
The capoeira’s version was also corroborated by the authentication of Fortunata’s handwriting and signature in the letter to Madame Brigitte, which were compared to the fake nursing reports required by the Polish doctor.
The police search of the second floor apartment occurred around 9:30 p.m. Aniceto had left at around 8 p.m. (shortly after his sister) and had immediately gone to Rufino the sorcerer’s house. He used the earrings to pay for certain services. Rufino was surprised after midnight in the English Cemetery with those same earrings, as well as other objects he claimed to use in his activities. His testimony was highly credible and confirmed the capoeira’s.
Baeta pointed out that the old man, although he would occasionally clam up, had always been unwavering in his statements. He even announced that Aniceto would be appearing at his home, a fact that was later confirmed.
Unless a body was found, the theory that Fortunata had been murdered and robbed seemed to have little credibility. If there was a body, it was not in the English Cemetery. Forensic investigations performed on June 23rd found no evidence of tampered graves, and in the mass grave—opened on the 9th of that month and showing signs of recently overturned earth—all of the corpses were male.
It had not been possible to establish a connection between the crime in question and the fact that on the 27th clear evidence of tampering had been found in the mass grave, although no bodies had been stolen. Fresh footprints indicated the presence of a barefoot male at the scene.
Since the footsteps heard by witness around 2 a.m. on the 27th were those of a male wearing shoes near the cemetery gate, no conclusions could be drawn. One theory was that it was another of old Rufino’s clients (or that of some other sorcerer), who had just finished some magic rite. The incinerated waste found did not cl
arify matters any, but it was very likely that it was linked to those rituals.
The report concluded by suggesting that Fortunata’s most important patrons be investigated. The expert’s theory was that the crime had political motivations. Fortunata had simply been used to carry it out, and those who hired her must have helped her escape.
The theory that the death had been an accident, the result of excessive zeal in the simulation of torture to which the secretary liked to submit himself, was somewhat weakened because the assassin had employed great strength—indeed, unusual strength for a woman.
The crime at the House of Swaps was by no means the only one of its kind.
Since this book’s thesis—that the history of a city is the history of its crimes—cannot be proven merely by presenting one case study, I have decided to mix into the larger narrative certain reports of crimes that, in a sense, foreshadow it. They are what I would call “predicate crimes.” I will begin with one that might have been titled The Birth of the Tragedy.
In the 1800s, in the coastal region of Gávea Parish (known as Praia Grande do Arpoador), in wetlands crisscrossed by inlets and mangroves, between the sand bank of the lagoon and the Dois Irmãos cliffs, just below the settlement of Pau, there was a hamlet of caiçaras—fishermen and shellfish gatherers who inhabited fifty rustic huts, from the time when the gunpowder factory was built on the lands of Rodrigo de Freitas.
For nearly three centuries they lived rather secludedly, almost lost in time, in a strictly endogamous environment. And though they had regular contact with the townspeople, bartering fish for tools and household instruments, and though they barely spoke their ancient gibberish anymore, they had still managed to preserve their somewhat exotic customs, which often were in conflict with the laws of the Empire.
Two of those customs are of particular interest: that of providing graves only to those who died of old age and of natural causes, while ingesting the flesh, blood, and ashes of the victims of any kind of accident; and that of submitting women to the control of a particular caste of men: the shark hunters. Saying “hunters” here is not inappropriate, because these animals were caught by hand.
It was an amazing feat: the caiçara who truly coveted a particular woman needed to take a stick with a stiff, razor-sharp tip and swim into the ocean, naked, to wait for an attack. He could take bait (for example, a guinea pig or a baby paca), and bleed it out on the high seas.
When the shark attacked and bared its teeth, the caiçara would jab the sharpened stick perpendicularly into the jaw, locking the shark’s teeth shut and capturing the prey.
From that moment on, this caiçara was entitled to the woman he wanted (if she were available). For a girl, to be chosen was considered the highest honor.
Men who did not undergo this test would only get a wife if a father, an uncle, or a brother were sufficiently generous. Women obtained in this fashion, in general, were of lower quality.
That is what happened in 1830 with one of these caiçaras, Conhé, who won the virgin Merã, a young, restless, and misty-eyed woman. Life can be funny: Conhé already had a first wife, given to him as a present by an uncle, but it was Merã, and not the first one, who soon became pregnant.
Conhé exhibited with pride, for nine moons, the necklace and harpoons made of shark’s teeth. Merã did not have much to her name, but she had a beautiful smile.
The change happened on the day she gave birth: when her water broke, Merã writhed in pain, and the child would not come out. The first wife sat back and watched the ordeal unfold, and when she sensed the outcome, she rushed out laughing and began spreading the news to the neighbors.
Those caiçaras considered any incident that diverged from the natural course of events and that could cause any kind of harm to an individual, especially death, to be demeaning. In a word: they disdained misfortune.
Thus, anyone who drowned, was murdered, was attacked by predators or poisonous snakes, lost their honor. This is why, if they were fit for consumption, they were eaten—even the ashes of their bones. Therefore, neither Merã nor anyone else in that situation would be considered worthy of saving. And the vengeful first wife ran through the entire village looking for Conhé.
The shark hunter learned of the disgrace while bartering at the Três Vendas Square with the slaves of architect Grandjean de Montigny, of the French Artistic Mission, who since 1826 had lived nearby in a sumptuous manor house in the shadow of the forest.
Conhé’s reaction was unexpected: he asked the slaves for help. Merã was rushed to the estate’s slave quarters, followed by an out-of-control Conhé. The midwife, an old slave woman, did not hold out much hope.
“The child is sitting up, half-strangled by the cord. I’ll do my best to save the mother.”
That was when a bewildered Conhé pleaded:
“Please, the child first! Don’t let the child die!”
Merã, though driven mad by the pain, could not help but listen. Life really is very funny: the old midwife managed to save both mother and daughter—for it was a girl, who would be given the name Vudja.
When they returned to the village—with a heavy sack of coffee and dried meat donated by Madame de Montigny, who also pledged to be the girl’s godmother—the reception was not the best. That same night, Conhé’s brothers-in-law, the first wife’s brothers, paid him a visit to let him know they had taken her back, with the uncle’s consent.
Conhé cursed them, but his attention was on Vudja. So much so, that he did not react when, the next day, some boys stole two of his harpoons, which were decorated with the teeth of the shark he had caught barehanded.
When Merã finally recovered from her fever and puerperal inconveniences, Conhé—happy because Vudja had survived—once again sought his wife. Then came the surprise: Merã rejected him, forcefully. Repeatedly so, on the second, third, and fourth attempts. Conhé insisted almost every day, and he was always rebuffed.
And that was not all: whenever he would show interest in any other woman, old or young, the other shark hunters would step in, alleging that the desired woman was unavailable and pointing to another hunter, who supposedly had chosen her before. It was an informal way, the only one they had, of banishing him from the caste. Conhé was the first among them to know this infamy.
Merã, for her part, besides scorning Conhé and enjoying her shellfish, found secret pleasure in practicing small cruelties against Vudja, pretending that they were minor accidents. Several times she burned the girl or scratched her skin with fish bones. One time she went too far and broke her daughter’s leg, leaving her lame for the rest of her life.
And Vudja grew up, and had her period. However, no shark hunter would consider her. The lame and crippled virgin was jealous of the girls who got married, all the while watching as Conhé’s overtures were consistently rejected by her mother, forcing Conhé to sulk alone in the opposite corner of the hut. Such was Vudja’s childhood.
It is important to say that Madame de Montigny kept her promise. Once a year, Vudja would go to her godmother’s house, always returning with some trinket or other. When she was thirteen, still ignored by men, she was astonished to see, behind the barn, one of the coachmen mounting one of the cooks.
She returned to the village very upset, mainly because the woman’s behavior had been very different from Merã’s. That same night she suddenly moved out of the hut, irritated by her parents’ ceaseless fighting.
Vudja’s plan was simple: one afternoon, while Conhé slept in the hut and Merã collected shellfish in the Preto River, she went to a nearby swamp, where she captured an enormous cururu, also known as a cane toad, or bufo marinus.
When Conhé felt that thump on his chest and on his mouth, his reaction was just what Vudja had imagined: startled out of his sleep, he pummeled the beast, and opened his eyes wide—which is precisely where the toad squirted his venom.
Vudja knew that until
the inflammation died down Conhé would be blind. What happened next is not hard to imagine. That night, his eyes covered with macerated rue leaves, Conhé was unable to pursue Merã. Thus, he was stunned, but also as happy as could be, when he once again felt the moistness of a woman’s body.
The next day he asked Merã for water; and tried to touch her affectionately on the forearm. His wife jumped back, flinging the drinking gourd far away. They exchanged insults and Conhé reminded her of the night before. Merã stammered in disbelief. Finally she denied it, forcefully, and left no doubt that what he was saying was impossible.
That is when Vudja entered, carrying her basket full of crabs in one arm and her father’s harpoons in the other. She had caught no fish with the harpoon; she looked at her mother with eyes even mistier than hers.
It perhaps comes as no surprise that our true story begins now and will revolve around the four main characters: Fortunata, Baeta, Rufino, and Aniceto. Or, to be more precise, around the three men, since Fortunata will only reappear in the end.
The first character that we should get to know better is the forensic expert Sebastião Baeta. Born out of wedlock, on his father’s side he came from one of those traditional Minas Gerais families. His mother’s lineage was also mineira, but she was the descendant of the ex-slaves who worked for that same family.
Sebastião’s parents remet in Rio de Janeiro: he was an engineer; she was a washerwoman. Their passion was so spontaneous that they registered the boy as legitimate, even though by then the engineer was already married to a grade school teacher from Viçosa. Such a situation, of course, could have resulted in lengthy legal battles concerning the future forensic expert’s inheritance rights.
The Mystery of Rio Page 6
