The Mystery of Rio

by Alberto Mussa

  The family, however, decided upon an amicable resolution, granting the washerwoman some child support, specifically for the education of the child, who would also be included (or so it was promised) in the engineer’s will.

  And Baeta, an outcast to his paternal relatives, was born at the foot of Turano Hill and raised in Catumbi in a modest home near the São Francisco de Paula Cemetery. To grow up in Catumbi means, naturally, to be in close contact with the streetwise toughs from Estácio. And Baeta acquired certain essential life knowledge from them.

  His great callings were women and books. Thus, he rose through the ranks quickly at the police department, and before long he was married to a girl with fine calves—a standard of female beauty of the time, destined to dominate the mainstream aesthetic of Rio de Janeiro for the rest of the century.

  Baeta was not a bad husband. But the influence of the orthodox street smarts from his childhood did not allow him to assume the risks of monogamy. Therefore, besides his wife Guiomar—who was faithful and was coveted by all the neighbors—he also carried on about half a dozen affairs throughout the city: on Ajuda Street, on the Livramento Hill, and in the Largo da Lapa.

  He liked to frequent the House of Swaps, where he was quite successful with white women. And he became the client of about half a dozen nurses, even Fortunata herself—a fact that significantly influenced the investigation, as we shall see.

  If this were a psychological novel—or one that inhabits the characters’ interior life, emphasizing subjectivity at the expense of action and concrete facts—we would reflect at length on one of the expert’s traits: his abandonment of his roots in order to seek affirmation in superior social circles.

  But it would have been a waste of time. Suffice it to say that Baeta’s reimmersion into the primitive world of the streets was a key moment in his biography. It happened when the chief of police, after reading the first report, insisted that the expert continue working the case as an investigator, so as to find Fortunata’s brother Aniceto, in the hopes that he would take them to her.

  So far, Aniceto’s daily routine had consisted of visiting Ouvidor Street, where he seemed to look for work and try to sell off Fortunata’s jewelry, raising the small fortune of almost ten contos de reis (although the pieces were worth even more than that).

  Baeta and the chief of police knew that following him during the day was not enough, and that the surveillance needed to go undercover: discreet forays at night to the piers, the hills, and the dives of Gamboa and Sáude—the capoeira’s stomping grounds—would be necessary.

  There was, however, one potential problem: the area was under the command of the First District, the Mauá Square Brotherhood, which undoubtedly would put up a deafening and fierce resistance to Baeta’s presence in their jurisdiction. The trick, therefore, was not to arouse their suspicions.

  So, practically the entire month of July was spent implementing the following strategy: Baeta frequenting taverns, making occasional trips to the port, and paying visits to the headquarters of the Rancho das Sereias on Camerino Street, where, with his broad shoulders and manly expression, he won over the head dancer and flag-bearer, who lived on Favela Hill. Of course, such a relationship went a long way toward justifying the expert’s presence in the area.

  The first incident that would change the course of our story happened in one of those old eateries on the slopes of Gamboa Hill, a meeting point for dockhands. Baeta was watching a group of street toughs gathered in a circle, keeping rhythm with their clapping hands and making up impromptu verses, when he heard a voice from behind:

  “Looking for me, boss?”

  It was Aniceto. He was blowing cigarette smoke up at the ceiling, his hat cocked to the side, decidedly dressed down—well below what the expert himself had seen him wearing on Ouvidor Street. Baeta was not there to get into silly fights. He shrugged it off, as if his suspicion were absurd.

  “That’s what I thought, boss. But I’m all yours.”

  The capoeira’s tone was an open challenge. Baeta decided to make light of the situation. The expert was—and knew himself to be—irresistible to the female sex. As if in the habit of boasting about it, he said:

  “I have better reasons for being here.”

  And he motioned suggestively to two unaccompanied women smoking and laughing it up in the corner. Aniceto, who had been getting downright hostile, simmered down. Anyone watching the clash would have concluded that the capoeira was now on his turf, because he answered, with a huge smile:

  “Those are my girls!”

  Before the expert could stop him, Aniceto, laughing and in high spirits, called the girls by their names, and announced that he wanted to introduce them to a policeman. Baeta, furious at being called out publicly, was invited to the table by the women themselves, with excited gestures, and was stunned when the capoeira politely offered him a seat:

  “Make yourself at home, boss!”

  Already walking away, Aniceto said to the girls:

  “You’re doing me a big favor.”

  This was going too far; it was highly awkward. Baeta, flustered, tried to apologize. And he was surprised that they did not seem even remotely offended. On the contrary, they looked at him with a certain degree of pity.

  “We’re good girls, sir. But we do whatever he asks.”

  For a proud man like Baeta, this was hard to take. At a loss for words, he left the girls and went to the bar to lean on the capoeira. By now, however, other people had witnessed the scene, and they started talking, cracking jokes, even laughing.

  “I don’t need help with women!”

  Aniceto shrugged his shoulders and threw his arms open:

  “Whatever you say, boss.”

  While the expert closed out the bill, the capoeira initiated a chant in the middle of the circle of drummers.

  “Every monkey has his branch,

  Every king, his deck.”

  About two weeks later, Baeta left police headquarters on Relação Street, walked up Inválidos Street, crossed the Campo de Santana, and rounded the Central Station toward Favela Hill, where his new girlfriend, the flag-bearer of Rancho das Sereias, lived.

  He climbed the stairs, greeting old ladies and tousling kids’ hair. The fact that he had already shown his face around there did not lessen the hostility with which the men eyed him. He was forced to stare down a group of toughs, just to put them in their place.

  The houses on Favela Hill were almost all made of wooden boards and slats left over from the abandoned crates in the harbor, covered with zinc sheets, rarely more than one room in size. Baeta’s girlfriend lived in such a house, on a steep hill next to a ditch, with her grandmother. The grandmother broke the news to him:

  “She’s not in, sir.”

  Her tone was grating. The expert did not like the old lady, who was always tepid toward him. Maybe because every time he visited the same scene repeated itself: the flag-bearer would send her grandmother off to the neighbor’s house, for however long their tryst lasted. Baeta once brought a coffee pot with him, but the old lady never even thanked him.

  So, he waited outside, standing in a puddle, angry at the girl. He learned more only from the next-door neighbor:

  “She’s probably still up there at the Galician’s bar, by the shrine.”

  That was hard for Baeta to swallow. He could not accept a girlfriend of his consorting with lowlifes. So, he headed over there, hot under the collar, ready to square off with her.

  The Galician’s bar had the architecture of a classic early 20th century dive: a low, rectangular establishment, with more front than back, zinc sheets for a roof, rarely more than one room in size, the entrance in the corner, and, instead of windows, two large wooden planks, occupying about two-thirds of the façade and opening out like two tongues, doubling as counters—all of which, essentially, constituted the bar.

 
Customers never went in. Most stood outside, leaning on the counters, chatting with the owner, while others congregated on the street itself.

  That was the scene when the expert arrived. It took a while to find her, because she was not actually in front of the establishment but by the entrance of the simple oratory that marked the top of the hill. Half hidden in the shade, hand on her waist, skirt thigh-level, she had her back to a group of men playing porrinha in a circle. She was talking to a man.

  Baeta approached and had his second surprise:

  “Look who’s here—the boss!”

  The man talking to Baeta’s girlfriend was Aniceto. It’s hard to describe the look of shock on the girl’s face and Baeta’s anger. Aniceto, however, was thoroughly enjoying himself, blowing cigarette smoke up at the sky. The expert took her by the arm, staking his claim.

  “Get out of here. I want to have a word with this bum.”

  The two men sized each other up.

  “Tell me, boss: Is it a crime now to chat up a single girl?”

  Baeta started to reach for his gun. But he noticed Aniceto shift his body slightly, as if to conceal a kick. From that distance, and in that position, the expert understood the futility of the gun—the same foot that would rise in a half-moon, to disarm him, would give the capoeira the necessary momentum to spin on his axis and unleash the fatal “leather hat” kick with the opposite leg. He did not want to give him the pleasure.

  “The girl’s mine. Lay off her.”

  Aniceto goaded him:

  “It’s not my fault if they love my chatter.”

  Baeta had already turned his back and was walking down the street, demanding an explanation from the flag-bearer. Contrary to what he had expected, he found no repentance or remorse.

  “Slavery’s been abolished, Sebastião!”

  Outraged, holding up a stiff finger, she swore her innocence. She had not noticed the time pass, and besides, the capoeira was not what Baeta thought. The expert cursed, threatened, and even gave her a shake. The old lady stepped in, inserting the flag rod between them.

  Baeta was a defeated man by the time the grandmother went off to the neighbor’s house, after they had made up. Later, when he arrived home, he thought it best not to wake up his wife.

  Anyone walking by that graceful man in his English cashmere vest, bow tie, and bowler hat, looking down at the pavement as he passed the Colombo Café, might not detect the tough-guy swing to his gait, or suspect that he also frequented the piers dressed in a striped shirt, silk scarf, and baggy pants—traditional capoeira garb.

  I speak, of course, of Aniceto. The townhouse on whose door he knocked—and entered straightaway, as a person known to the proprietor—belonged to a widow from Macaé, distantly related to the sinister Coqueiro Mota family, whose patriarch was the last free man hanged in Brazil.

  The widow had a half-niece, half-cousin, born on a farm in Quissamã, an heiress, married to an illustrious industrialist who made his fortune in the textile business. It was she, the half-cousin, half-niece, who discreetly knocked on the same door half an hour later.

  An observer watching these two enter that same house in the same stealthy manner, at the same time of day, would presume that this was a case of adultery. And he would be right.

  The incident is of no small importance to this narrative, since it is the first time we see Aniceto having relations with a respectable lady. Therefore, it is interesting to delve deeper into this affair, and learn how it unfolded.

  The heiress, the wife of the eminent industrialist, was not unhappy in her marriage. She had been coveted in her youth, for her beauty as well as for her money. And, since she was a rich heiress, she could choose whomever she wanted at the parties and receptions given by her parents.

  The industrialist was older. And, as often happens, his maturity impressed the girl. That was not all: the industrialist was the most successful of all her suitors. He had a fortune of ten thousand contos de réis, and his conversation was not the most foolish in the room.

  If one lie persists—left over from nineteenth-century novels—it is that pure sentiments cannot involve financial interest. For the heiress, however, as well as for many women like her, a man’s wealth was the material expression of his ability to win; it was a mark of virility.

  The heiress liked seeing him in expensive cut tails and feeling his face, recently shaved with lavenders imported from France. She was proud of having been chosen, of being considered a worthy match for that mighty man, whose decisions influenced the lives of thousands. And she loved it when he had his way with her without asking permission.

  So, then, how to explain Aniceto, and their presence together at the townhouse?

  When the capoeira approached her the first time, they were on Ouvidor Street, in front of a women’s clothing store. She was coming out, he was on his way in. Aniceto invaded her space with a piercing look.

  “Need me to call you a cab, ma’am?”

  He was coarse in appearance but not poorly dressed. She passed by him without answering, thinking that the correct thing would have been for him to offer to carry her parcels. Farther down the street, at the glove shop near the Notícia newsroom, the capoeira called out to her again, his eyes fixed on her, this time proposing to drop her off at home. She thanked him, but curtly, making clear that she disapproved of his audacity.

  “Come for a stroll tomorrow. I’d like very much to talk to you again, ma’am.”

  It was the height of insolence. But the heiress returned the following day, because she thought herself to be a free person, and she would not be held hostage by a common womanizer. And, sure enough, there was Aniceto, walking leisurely along Ouvidor Street. He smiled when he saw her leave the perfumery on the corner of Gonçalves Dias, and he resumed his pursuit.

  “Should we go get something to drink, ma’am?”

  His vulgar language, his mannerisms were in all aspects completely inappropriate for a woman of her status, or of the status she believed herself to be.

  But it was precisely this exhibition—being wooed in this crass manner by such a brash fellow—that led to her capitulation. She began to enjoy being the object of that lothario’s attention.

  “Who knows, maybe next time?”

  And there was a next time, on that same street. Little by little, things evolved. Until one day they met at a discreet café on Central Avenue—she, wisely, accompanied by the widow from Macaé. It did not take long for the widow to open her house to the lovers.

  On that day, in a bedroom without windows on the second floor, the heiress was naked, facedown. Aniceto lay next to her, his outstretched hand wandering over the nape of her neck and the swell of her buttocks, sometimes drifting to the shoulders, sometimes the back of legs, in a motion that was rhythmic and gentle, but firm.

  He did this while whispering in her ear, foreshadowing the obscenities he would demand of her. There was another element to this game: the capoeira would tell her that these obscenities had to be done in front of people present in that room who were hidden, watching them. She, with her legs slightly open, sighed, and writhed, and raised her hips. And these people, this small audience, did not only include strangers. In her imagination, there was someone very special there, a privileged spectator, watching everything, all of the vileness: her industrialist husband.

  Let us go back in time a little, to the moment when Aniceto passed in front of the Colombo, head down, and proceeded to knock on the townhouse door. Dressed in a style that mimicked all of the elegance around him, no one paid him any mind.

  The heiress, in turn, arrived in a poplin wire-frame dress, with silk gloves and a lace hat, and was much noticed by passersby as well as the clientele at the café.

  The open admiration of beautiful women is a tradition in Rio de Janeiro. And the heiress, who was accustomed to that type of attention and liked to show off in public
, did not realize that she was being followed, and that she had been from the moment she left her majestic mansion in Botafogo. It is not difficult to guess that it was by the industrialist himself.

  The heiress’s husband was very nervous, lifting his collar and looking at his watch every chance he got. He seemed to want to register the exact time when the adultery would be committed. In the café, he drank three glasses of the best pomace brandy. And he began to sweat. Many knew him in that café, and his nervous demeanor was attracting plenty of attention.

  So, when he tossed too much money on the table, and did not wait for the change, and knocked on the same townhouse door, many eyes were upon him.

  Of course, the industrialist knew the widow. The owner of the house could not help but open the door, and invite him in, though she must have been terrified. But these saucy old ladies are cunning: she imagined that from street level he would not be able to hear anything upstairs, and that she would be able to send him on his way quickly, because a man like him would not have much to discuss with a distant relative of his wife’s. She realized her mistake when he drew his revolver:

  “Where is she!”

  It did not take long for the industrialist to kick open the door and rush into the room, catching the adulteress by surprise in that unmistakable position I have already described, just as she was in the throes of her exciting fantasy. Destiny truly has amazing coincidences.

  The industrialist—though he was armed, though he had long suspected everything—trembled when faced with the truth, and was slow to act. Thus, he missed with the first shot he fired at his rival, and when he tried to fire a second one he felt the blow: his wife struck him with a wooden Saint Anthony, adding two or three additional blows to the head once he was on the ground.

  Meanwhile, the widow had sounded the alarm, which coincided with the shots. There was a commotion in the street, and the entire café emptied out, hoping to intervene, but the police arrived straightaway. The heiress was arrested then and there, naked, bloodied, and in tears.