His Own Man

by Edgard Telles Ribeiro

  A friend who served at the secretary-general’s office at the time remarked that the little room was not so much seen as imagined. Perhaps that was why, in order to demystify the secrecy associated with his secluded corner, Max often visited his colleagues’ work areas, under various pretexts, which then allowed for informal conversations about what he liked to call “assorted agenda items.” He would make these rounds without his jacket, which remained hanging on the back of his chair. He wasn’t the only one to go around in shirtsleeves, but he was among the few to do so around the younger staff, which, in everyone’s view, contributed to his elevated status on the hierarchical scale governing our lives.

  In those early days, the SNI, or its first incarnation, was located in downtown Rio, on the thirteenth floor of the Treasury Department. One of the building’s main entrances faced Avenida Antônio Carlos, not far from the Maison de France, one of the hubs of Rio’s intellectual life due to the new wave films first shown there and the plays (Brecht and Ionesco, interspersed with Feydeau or Dürrenmatt) that brought together well-known casts and select audiences.

  Max went regularly to the Maison de France and could often be seen at the restaurant next door indulging in a sandwich before some show. On at least one occasion, however, he was also spotted on the notorious thirteenth floor of the treasury building. But twenty years would elapse before a connection could be made between his presence there and his secret activities. The person who saw him in the waiting room at that fateful address late one afternoon, and greeted him with relief, had come seeking information on the whereabouts of a relative who had disappeared — and couldn’t imagine that Max was there for a different reason. After embracing our friend, with an intensity that presumably reflected shared fears and concerns, this person had discreetly whispered an affectionate “good luck” on seeing Max give a wave and slip through a door.

  To some extent, and like many of our generation, I too let myself be fooled by the nature of Max’s activities. Since he took part in our group’s most conspicuous tasks, I considered him a member of our team, one whose duties might occasionally have been confidential but entirely owing to the sensitive nature of the matters he dealt with.

  In retrospect, we all seemed to be part of a large-scale puzzle, of which numerous pieces were missing. Today it would be easy to put together this long, sprawling mosaic and deduce the reasons that led some of our colleagues, passed over for promotion, to choose the stairs when they saw Max approaching the elevator. But how could we have known then? And how could we have found out what led Ana, the talented actress our hero seemed to get along with so well, to slowly pull away — to the point of not even greeting him in public?

  Anyone who knew the couple simply thought that Max had swapped the young woman for the daughter of a well-known banker. Along with his circle of five or six friends, they could be seen at the Jockey Club or in the pergola at the Copacabana Palace, where they were photographed for the social columns. By then, the old group from Urca had already split up.

  At this stage, Max incorporated Pascal and Saint-Simon into his extensive readings, perhaps out of a need to go back in time and brace himself for the transitions still to come. He was also careful enough to relegate the works he had devoured in his youth to the top shelves of his bookcases and obscure them with photos and knickknacks. Beyond that, he immersed himself in jazz with feverish intensity, as if he’d found an outlet that would help him deal with the contradictory world he currently moved in. Except that now I was the only one who joined him on these lonely voyages — which became increasingly rare.

  Many years later, after democracy had been restored, a diplomat of his generation gained access to documents that confirmed Max’s ties with the intelligence community. Finger raised, he confronted him with the proof. Max did not back down. He simply said, “But what did you expect, my good man? Someone had to play that role.” His smile suggested, You all were lucky it was me. Besides, he soon added, his participation had merely been sporadic. Attributable to the geopolitical options of the government at the time. He claimed he hadn’t been at all involved with the persecution of diplomats. Especially since, according to him, those accusations had resulted from special political inquiries, which he would never have taken part in.

  It’s possible. Just as it’s possible that, at that stage, he had indeed been acting solely on the level of ideas. Particularly because the generals, fascinated by a power to which they’d never had such unrestricted and complete access, discovered they were statesmen. Therefore, they needed theories that would legitimize their goals and priorities, not just anticommunist propaganda. Even if this had been adequate to put them in power, slogans alone would never keep them there.

  Max had read everything, from Confucius to Walter Benjamin, from Machiavelli to Hans Morgenthau, from Proudhon to Arnold Toynbee, not to mention Gramsci, Adorno, Max Weber, and Hannah Arendt. He knew how to adapt, simplify, and, above all, manipulate the information he would occasionally take from each of these sources. Furthermore, he was truly knowledgeable about South America. He embraced Marshall McLuhan’s ideas with such enthusiasm that all were convinced of the need to censor the media at once. He had had access to a copy of Strategic Intelligence Production, the work of a US general, which he had absorbed like few others — and would use as part of his personal rhetoric, alternating quotes from it with lines by Sun Tzu (“As is written in The Art of War,” he would declare, narrowing his eyes and giving his version of a Chinese accent, “every battle is won … before it is ever fought”).

  His sense of humor was much appreciated for allowing everyone to demonstrate their wit and intellectual nimbleness by laughing at his jokes. But his strength derived from the theoretical information needed by the lower military echelons on whom the new leaders depended. The War College officers would regularly call him for informal conversations, which would last all night and include, as a final touch, a stroll along a nearby beach to watch the sun rise and a new Brazil emerge.

  7

  Max met Marina, the banker’s daughter he would eventually marry, on the train from Rio to São Paulo. She was, he would tell me months later, “a shy but tenacious girl.” Marina, who was in her early twenties and had not yet experienced true love, had been charmed by a man whose calm demeanor reminded her of a younger version of her father. The same deliberate gestures, the same clearly enunciated speech, as though he were reciting lines of poetry.

  Marina was nearsighted and wore glasses. Max had dismissed her beauty at first, picking up on it little by little, as if the figure in front of him needed time to emerge from the shadows in order to come into focus.

  She was tall and dressed with a casual elegance that bordered on reserved. The women in our group would never fail to notice the quality of her clothing, usually by some renowned designer. At least initially, they treated Marina with hostility. And even though she pretended not to notice, it stung nonetheless.

  With his discerning eye, Max had immediately noted her composure when she came into his compartment. The young woman’s poise had led him to lower his newspaper.

  “Pardon me,” she had said softly, “but I think this compartment was reserved for me.” Only then had she looked straight at him.

  She must be right, he had thought, both surprised and disconcerted. Sharing a cabin with a young woman on a night train didn’t actually make much sense to him. Had there been some mistake?

  He searched his jacket pocket for his ticket.

  “Could be,” he started to say as he stood. “But I’m afraid … I think I’m in the right compart —”

  “No,” she interrupted politely, after leaning over his ticket and pointing to the number on the door.

  Max had, in fact, been mistaken. Not only was he in the wrong compartment, he was in the wrong car! Embarrassed, he apologized and folded his newspaper. The woman watched with amusement as he hastily gathered his belongings.

  Later, when they came across each other again in the rest
aurant car, she smiled and invited him to join her, extending her hand warmly, “Marina Magalhães de Castro.”

  “Marcílio Andrade Xavier.”

  “Andrade Xavier?”

  “Yes … and no,” he was quick to reply. “It’s a long story.”

  “It’s a long trip,” she offered.

  And the train continued along its tracks, only now at a livelier pace. A bottle of red wine appeared as if by magic. The two glasses the young woman drank took a greater toll on her than his six. Then came the name game. They had mutual friends, both in and outside Itamaraty. And although they didn’t travel in the same social circles, they frequented the fringe world of artists and intellectuals. With the thrill of those on the brink of larger discoveries, they confirmed that they had other favorite haunts in common: from seaside restaurants to the Da Vinci bookstore, from the movie sessions at Paissandu to the nighttime races at the Jockey Club. Marina’s father’s bank had financed several Cinema Novo films. They had attended the same previews without knowing it. And this now tickled them, as if the news might foreshadow other exciting moments.

  Max had had no trouble pinpointing his companion’s social status. Her roots could be traced back to an old agrarian aristocracy on her mother’s side, and a fortune built and consolidated in the financial market on her father’s. She, in turn, had noticed that her fellow traveler didn’t fit the usual diplomat stereotype. Although well mannered, he didn’t have the pretentious airs or affected behavior of his colleagues. He showed genuine interest in what she said, without seeming to think his own words carried any special weight. Everything about his appearance suggested seriousness — yet he acted as if the last thing he expected was to be taken seriously.

  Perhaps because of that, or the slight hope that takes hold of someone shy confronted by the unexpected on a night train, Marina ended up being the one to utter the decisive line of the evening. After talking at length about their respective journeys in the somewhat nonchalant tone of people who didn’t harbor unrealistic expectations, Max pointed out that, with the train’s arrival at the station, their paths would part once more. She swallowed one last gulp of wine and took a deep breath before throwing down the gauntlet: “Unless fate works its wonders and brings us together again.”

  Not even the jesting tone in which the line was delivered had stripped the words of their subtext as Max heard it: fate … wonders … and fortune, he had mused to himself.

  The next day, Marina confessed to a friend over the phone, “I don’t know where I got the courage to say something so ridiculous.” Before adding, not very convincingly, “It must have been the wine.” (If you say so, her friend was probably thinking on the other end of the line.)

  Marina knew perfectly well that her boldness was born of old longings. But she was unaware of the underlying cause: the flames of the small hearth fire built for two on that night train had been carefully kindled by Max.

  After dinner, the two had stayed in the dining car for more than an hour, peppering their conversation with longer and longer pauses. Marina gazed out at the small towns and villages they were passing through in the middle of the night, which seemed like apparitions, but in a shared dream. Every so often the train would go through a tunnel, and the two travelers’ profiles suddenly became visible in the fogged-up window, only to disappear again into the landscape. This left her feeling as if they’d gone off together toward glorious destinations, whereas the man seated across from her, contemplating the same scenery, saw things more pragmatically.

  Suddenly, as if overcome by a profound weariness, they retired to the cocoons of their respective sleeping compartments. They wanted to replay their conversations in the dark, to the rocking of the train, with no witnesses other than their own hopes and desires.

  Marina had admired the straightforward candor with which Max had spoken of his separation, even though the subject tugged at her heartstrings. Listening to details about the breakup of his relationship with his ex-wife, she discovered how alone she too had felt throughout her adolescence and early adult life. Without realizing it, she had wandered into unfamiliar territory, the sort of place where soul mates sometimes meet.

  Max didn’t sleep at all that night. Watching the succession of shadows that flickered on the ceiling of his cabin, he weighed the implications of this chance encounter. It seemed that suddenly, due to a whim of the gods, he would be able to take a decisive step toward reacquiring what he had always seen as his, thereby sealing the promise of a stellar future that had begun with his entrance into Itamaraty.

  He would say little about this encounter to his colleagues. For months, Marina remained shrouded in an aura of mystery, from which she rarely emerged, save in a photo published in some paper or the hushed sound of her voice on a whisper-filled phone call.

  I owe the detailed description of the train scene to her. We became friends over time, sounding each other out as we conducted separate investigations into the enigma that was Max. Whereas I sought more objective truths bearing on the realities of my career, Marina’s search would probe deeper, taking the form of an obsession in years to come.

  Why, Marina would ask herself, had Max stopped loving her as intensely as she did him? Why, after the wedding, had he begun to withdraw — compelling her to entangle herself even farther in their desperate relationship? What could possibly have gone wrong?

  The more she anxiously turned to her husband, childishly exposing herself by calling him persistently and giving him gifts of records he hardly listened to or books he barely read, the more Max seemed to retreat. The game had intrigued her at first but soon became frustrating, leading her to have recurring nightmares of quicksand and free falls in space.

  Life hadn’t prepared her for major challenges, and surely hadn’t endowed her with defenses against situations of this kind. She couldn’t identify its origins or the reasons for her malaise. She had even fought with her older sister, who had simply tried to put the problem in perspective by saying, “Maybe he just doesn’t like women … these things happen all the time among diplomats.”

  Marina didn’t know how to deal with a man who, after showing initial interest — and desire — in a thousand ways, gradually distanced himself from her, albeit almost imperceptibly. She didn’t know what to make of a husband who had shown so little passion on their wedding night, before falling immediately into a heavy sleep beside her, leaving her alone as if suspended in the dark.

  That night, while the wedding guests slept peacefully, dreaming of overflowing seafood platters, a troubling seed had embedded itself in a forgotten corner of her being — the same one that, years later, would lead her to seek comfort in the arms of other men out of loneliness and spite.

  Max, for his part, was deluded into believing that being with Marina made him immune to all types of threats and dangers. He thought that, with her at his side, no one would be able to touch him. In one respect, he was right, as she would remain his companion on a socially irreproachable path that enhanced his career during the twelve years they lived together. But if Max led a double life at work, in the private realm of his relationship with Marina he ended up committing far more painful kinds of duplicity, leaving in their wake countless wounds and scars.

  He would be surprised, even angry, should someone reveal that, in spite of his formidable defense mechanisms, he loved his wife. To preclude the anxiety and fear of such a discovery, he had chosen to keep his feelings in check. Thus his tendency to respond almost indifferently to the affection directed at him. And to position himself as his wife’s tutor rather than her partner. After all, he thought, she was young and had much to learn. Such prosaic truths give rise to misunderstandings. And disappointments.

  Of the saga I’ve taken up, I know only what was told to me piecemeal and diluted over time. But my impression of the couple’s failed relationship is clear: unlike his secret world, which he managed for better or worse, Max would pay a much higher price with the failure of his marriage.

&nb
sp; Far beyond remaining the rich wife who brought him the social and financial support he deemed necessary, Marina ultimately became a painful counterpoint to his life — deep-rooted in abandonment. Would he ever have suspected that he used his wife like a mirror, to hide evils of another nature?

  One thing is apparent, however: this state of affairs might have contributed to his withdrawal from himself — and from all of us. Socially adrift since childhood, simultaneously dazzled and intimidated at work by circles beyond his reach, Max would respond poorly when confronted with his wife’s increasing vulnerability. He had to believe that Marina was strong: he needed her. The way a warrior needs his shield.

  Less than a year had gone by between the Rio–São Paulo train ride and the wedding reception at the Santa Teresa mansion where the Magalhães de Castros lived — a party I attended along with a significant portion of carioca society and most of Itamaraty.

  Dressed in an understated silk gown and adorned with flowers, Marina had come down somewhat belatedly to the mansion’s ground floor. In the garden, where she was met with cheers from the guests as a flight of white doves was released, Max greeted her reverently with a chaste kiss on the forehead. A first sign of what would lie ahead.

  8

  The twelve years of Max and Marina’s marriage would largely coincide with the worst phase of the dictatorship in our country. And during the tense political situation that marked the end of this period (“slow and gradual easing up,” as the authorities liked to remind everyone), their personal ties would finally unravel.

  It is hard to fathom how Max’s two worlds — his professional and private lives — coexisted. I don’t think they ever really came into contact. But Max had to remain constantly on the alert.