The market maker

by Ridpath, Michael

  "Thank you," I said, my voice hoarse.

  The taxi lurched on through the Rio traffic, accelerating through red lights, swerving around holes in the road, cursing and hooting its way through the jams.

  Eventually we entered a tunnel and the traffic sped up. We emerged in front of a broad lake. Apartment buildings sprouted up around it, and behind them on all sides rose tall green rounded mountains. On top of one of these stood the statue of Christ, arms outstretched as he embraced the city below him. We skirted the lake at a crawl again, barely overtaking a parade of joggers and walkers. Two double sculls glided across the water, their oars moving in perfect time. Surrounded by these breathtaking walls of green, it was difficult to believe we were in the heart of a city.

  These next few days in Rio were going to be difficult. Not the business. I had been pleased with the meeting and my performance in it. No, Isabel. Her presence was disconcerting. She didn't have to do anything, she could just be sitting next to me leafing through a magazine, and that would be enough to distract me. The way she bit her lip as she read, the way her hair caressed her elegant neck, the two knobs of collarbone peeking out of the top of her dress.

  I thought I was good at ignoring pretty women when necessary. I had taught a number of eager twenty-year-olds, falling in love with a great literature and easily impressed with their guide. But tutor-student relations were now frowned upon in the academic world, and I had successfully shown no interest in any of them.

  I had tried to strike up a conversation with Isabel on the plane. She hadn't been rude, but she hadn't exactly been talkative either. She had shown a sort of shy self-possession that finished each conversation almost as soon as it had begun, but which made her if anything more appealing. It would have been easier if she had just said "Shut up and leave me alone." Eventually I had given up and read bond documents through the

  night, until the suburbs of northern Rio de Janeiro af>-peared through the window with the dawn.

  In a few minutes the taxi pulled up outside the Copacabana Palace, nestled in the middle of a row of characterless hotels and apartment blocks that faced the famous beach of the same name. It was a squat white building, whose elegantly etched art deco features recalled its heyday as the leading hotel for the rich and beautiful of the 1930s. Here, I had read, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had danced, and Noel Coward and Eva Peron had gambled. As our taxi rolled to a halt, a man in a crisp white uniform opened the door, and another whisked away our bags. We checked in, and were led through a courtyard past a swimming pool shimmering coolly blue against the white glare of the hotel walls. A solitary swimmer cut through its lightly rippling surface as she forged up and down. Two couples, one a pair of bankers and one a pair of middle-aged tourists, drank coffee in the shade of a large, broad-leafed tree. Quite simply, I was overawed. Fd traveled before, to India, Thailand, Morocco, but I had never stayed in anywhere that cost more than twenty pounds a night. The Copacabana Palace cost significantly more than that. Isabel, of course, knew the hotel well, and took it aU in her stride.

  I went up to my room, took a cold beer out of the minibar, and walked out onto the balcony. Below me was the pool and beyond that, outside the calm confines of the hotel, past the constant stream of traffic on the Avenida Atlantica, was the bustle of Copacabana beach itself. At its near edge, walkers strode purposefully up and down, occasionally pausing to perform a ritual twisting and stretching of limbs. The beach itself was dotted with brown and black bodies. This was a beach where people did things: played volleyball or

  soccer, sold ice creams or funny hats, milled about, or sat and watched everyone else. Then, beyond all this, there was the sea, swelling gently until a few feet from the shore, when it suddenly erupted into white fluffy waves, which broke tidily and prettily onto the pale sand.

  I shed my jacket and tie, took a sip of the cold beer, i closed my eyes, and turned toward the soft heat of the late-afternoon sun. The complementary roar of traffic and waves lulled me. For the first time that week, I be- ! gan to relax. •

  The turmoil of the last few days began to sort itself out in my brain. The first week at Dekker and my attempts to i absorb all the new information thrown at me; the com- i plexities of the favela deal; Martin Beldecos's fax. i

  I still didn't know what to do about that. I wished Td i had a chance to discuss it with Jamie before I'd left. It ! seemed very likely that money was being laundered at Dekker Trust. Whether Ricardo and Eduardo knew that, I had no idea. But I also had no idea what it had I got to do with me. My instincts were to try to find out ; more, quietly. A first step would be Donald Winters's ' contact at the DEA. But that would have to wait until I returned. There was a knock at the door. It was Isabel. <

  "Come in," I said. "Do you want a beer?" She shook her head. I headed back out to the balcony, and she followed me. i

  "This is amazing," I said. j

  "Rio is beautiful," she said matter-of-factly. "And if | you work for Dekker, you tend to end up in the nicest : hotel rooms." i

  She was wearing a simple black surmner dress. As ! she leaned back against the railing of my balcony, my j throat went dry. I took another swig of beer. I

  "I tried to get hold of Jack Langton, my contact at the WDF, but no luck/' she said. "I've left a message for him to call me tomorrow at the Ministry of Finance."

  "OK."

  "Tm going to dinner with some old friends tonight. Will you be all right here by yourself?"

  "ITlbefine."

  "If you do go out, don't carry much money with you, and if anyone asks you for it, just give it to them."

  "Yes, mum."

  She smiled and blushed. "I'm sorry, but this town can be dangerous for strangers."

  "That's OK. Don't worry, I'U be careful."

  She moved to leave and then hesitated. "I'm having lunch with my father on Saturday. Would you like to come? He's always enjoyed reading Russian novels. I think he'd like to meet you."

  I tried to hide my surprise. "Thank you very much."

  "Good," she said, and was gone.

  I sat and watched evening descend upon the beach. Then I grabbed a few reals and joined the evening promenade along the Avenida Atlantica.

  The meetings with the rating agencies on Friday went well. They seemed to be satisfied that everything himg together. The only slight worry was that we didn't hear from the WDF. So during a break for lunch Isabel called them, and discovered that Jack Langton was out all day and would call back on Monday.

  On Saturday morning I called Pedro Hattori on the off chance he was at the office. He was. My Argentine Discounts were down a point following an unsubstantiated nmnor of a general strike the following week. Pedro told me not to worry, there was nothing in it. But I did.

  I spent the morning exploring Rio. It was an extraordinary city, physically the most beautiful I had ever seen. It was an absurd mix of sea, beach, forest, and mountain, all four in such close proximity that it seemed impossible to fit a city in among them. Everywhere I went there seemed to be a beach in front of me and a mountain behind. The buildings themselves were nothing special—anything old in Rio was run-down and shabby—^but even the starkest modem building was overwhelmed by the natural beauty surrounding it.

  I returned to the hotel at one o'clock to meet Isabel. We jumped into a taxi to Ipanema, where her father lived. Ipanema beach was subtly different from Co-pacabana. The apartment buildings seemed newer and better kept, and the beachgoers were different, more relaxed. Phone booths like giant motorcycle helmets in yellow and orange sprouted up in clusters every hundred yards or so. In most of them girls in shorts and bikini tops laughed and chatted. On my walk the other night along Copacabana the girls had looked like hookers; here they looked like middle-class schoolgirls fixing up the day's entertainment on the beach. Ipanema had sun, sea, sand, and money.

  But at the far end of the beach I could see a jumble of little square boxes clinging to the edge of a mountain, looking at any moment as if they woul
d tumble into the sea below. They were packed tightly together, no line was quite straight, no building quite complete. Afavela.

  "It's extraordinary to see the two so close together," I said. "The rich and the poor. It's almost obscene."

  "It is obscene," replied Isabel.

  We pulled up a side street and stopped outside some iron gates adorned with a small video camera and an electronic combination lock. Above us rose a sand-colored apartment building. The gates whirred and

  THE MARKET MAKER 65 j

  opened, and the taxi drove us up to the black smoked- ;

  ^^ We waited into a cool lobby, and a uniformed door 1

  man greeted Isabel with a grin. A boy also in umform |

  ushered us into a wood-paneled elevator, and we headed ,

  up to the fifteenth floor. The doors opened mto a .

  ''^'Sel'" a deep voice cried. A tall middle-aged man with a shght stoop stood waiting for us. He opened out :

  his arns. '

  "Papa!," she said, and gave him a hug. ,

  Isabel's father had her long Roman nose, which on : him was distii^guished. He peered at me over half- :

  moon glasses. t j i j ■

  "I'm Luis. Welcome." He shook my hand and smiled ,

  He was very tall. Even with the stoop 1 had to look up a ,

  him, and I'm six-foot-three. His hair was still black^u^ ^

  was thinning. He had a good-humored face, wnnkled

  by sun and laughter. "Come in, come m. ■

  He led us into a large Uving room. The furniture was :

  low, and either of dark wood or cane. Colorful paintmgs <

  covered the walls in large canvases. The sun stream^ j

  in from big windows that looked out onto a balcony Be ^

  vond that stretched the shimmering blue sea. j

  Suddenly there was a clattering sound followed by ,

  heavy thumping from the hallway behind us Isabel. .

  screamed a hoarse voice, and a large black woman ;

  wearing a dark uniform and an apron charged mto the ;

  room She grabbed Isabel and kissed her hard on both ,

  cheeks. Isabel beamed and spoke to the big woman i

  rapidly They exchanged laughs and hasty comments ;

  and then the woman caught sight of me. She wtepered ,

  something that made Isabel blush, and turn and hit her .

  playfully on the shoulder.

  ''Maria has been my maid since I was a little girl/' Isabel said. "She still thinks she can tell me what to do."

  I held out my hand to her. " Tudo hem ? " I said, using up fifty percent of my Portuguese vocabulary. Maria's grin somehow widened farther, and she regaled me with a torrent of Portuguese. I settled on "Ohrigado" or "Thank you" as an answer, which sent her into hysterics.

  Luis looked on in amusement. "Can I get you a drink? Have you tried a caipirinha yet?"

  "Not yet."

  "Well then, you must try one now." He spoke quickly to another maid who was hovering at the door, and she disappeared.

  Luis led us out onto the balcony. Although the table and chairs were in the shade, the glare of the midday sun reflecting off the nearby white buildings hurt my eyes. We could look over them, to Ipanema Bay, an astonishing blue, dotted with lush green islands. Brightly colored tropical flowers spilled out of tubs on the terrace, and a bougainvillaea in full purple bloom framed the view. The gentle murmur of traffic, sea, and people drifted up to us on the breeze.

  The maid returned with the drinks. The caipirinha turned out to be some kind of coarse rum in lime juice. The sweetness of rum, the bitterness of lime juice, the coldness of the ice, and the kick of alcohol created a delicious mix of sensations.

  Luis was watching me and smiled. "How do you like it?"

  "It goes down very well."

  "Be careful," said Isabel. "You should always treat a caipirinha with respect."

  Luis chuckled.

  "It must be hard to take London after this," I said to Isabel, taking another look out at the bay.

  She laughed. ''It's true. As a Brazilian, you need courage to get through a London winter."

  "Isabel tells me you work with her at Dekker Ward," said Luis.

  "That's right. I have nearly one week's experience in banking. But you're a banker yourself, aren't you?"

  "Yes. My family were landowners in the state of Sao Paulo. Through the generations they have shown a consistent ability to turn a large fortune into a smaller one. I suppose you could say I've changed that record." He glanced at Isabel. "In fact, it looks as if banking is now firmly in the blood."

  Isabel flushed. "Papal, I enjoy it, OK? I have a good job, I do it weU."

  "I'm sure you do," said Luis with just the barest hint of condescension. Isabel noticed it and scowled. "Isabel tells me you used to teach Russian."

  "That's right. At the School of Russian Studies in London."

  "Ah, I wish I could speak the language. I have read many Russian novels, all the greats, but I think it would be wonderful to read them in the original."

  "It is," I said. "Russian prose is a marvelous thing. It seems almost like poetry. The sounds, the resonance, the nuances which writers like Tolstoy and Dostoyev-sky can achieve are extraordinary. Beautiful."

  "And who is your favorite?"

  "Oh, Pushkin, undoubtedly, for just that reason. He does things with the language that no one has managed before or since. And he tells a good story."

  "I often think Brazil is a little like Russia," said Luis.

  "ReaUy?"

  "Yes. Both countries are vast. Both peoples seem to live for the present. We're both used to poverty, corruption, great potential that is always just beyond our

  reach. You know they say about Brazil that it is the country of the hiture and it always will be." He chuckled. "But we don't give up. We have a drink, a dance, we enjoy ourselves, amd perhaps the next day we die."

  I thought about what he had said. He had described exactly the strange mixture of exuberant good humor and melancholy that had attracted me to Russian literature in the first place. "Perhaps you're right. I'm afraid I don't know enough about Brazil. But I suspect the climate's better."

  Luis laughed. "That's true. It makes enjoying life

  easier."

  "It's a fascinating country. I'd love to find out more about it."

  Luis took my arm. "Do you know Tolstoy's story, 'Master and Man'?"

  I smiled. "I was teaching it just three weeks ago."

  "That could apply perfectly to Brazil."

  "What's that, Papail" Isabel asked.

  " You tell her/' Luis said to me.

  "A nobleman and his servant are stranded in a snowstorm. The nobleman rides off to safety with their oiily horse, leaving his servant to walk. After a while the nobleman is thrown off his horse. As he trudges through the snow, he reflects on the uselessness of his life, and probably his death, spent alone and in selfishness. So he returns to find his servant lying freezing in the snow. Tlie nobleman spreads himself on the servant like a cloak. In the morning, when the storm has blown over, they are discovered. The servamt survives, but the nobleman is dead."

  Isabel's large dark eyes were watching me, following every word. "That's beautiful."

  "It expressed Tolstoy's beliefs in the obligations of the nobility," I said.

  ''Beliefs that we would do well to heed in Brazil/' said Luis.

  "Unfortunately, not many of Tolstoy's contemporaries took much notice either. Forty years later there was a revolution."

  "We won't have another revolution here. Just anarchy, violence, and poverty."

  "Has Isabel told you what we're doing here?" I asked.

  Isabel looked embarrassed.

  "My daughter doesn't like to talk to me much about her work," he said. "My bank and hers often find ourselves rivals, so it's probably best that way."

  I wasn't sure whether I was about to give away a trade secret, so I glanced at Isabel. She s
hrugged. So I told him about the favela deal. He listened intently, glancing occasionally at Isabel, who avoided his eyes.

  There was silence when I had finished. Finally he asked a question. "When do you say the bond issue will be launched?"

  "In two weeks, we hope," answered Isabel.

  "Well, have your people give me a call. I will make sure that the bank buys some."

  " But, Papai, you never deal with Dekker!"

  "I know. But this is different. I think it's important for Banco Horizonte to support initiatives like this."

  Isabel's mouth hung open.

  "Don't look so shocked, my darling."

  "Papai, you're not doing this just to humor me, are you?"

  "No, of course not. It's a good idea. It deserves support. I'm glad to see you are doing so well. Ah, here's lunch."

  We sat down as Maria brought us some steak and salad. The meat was tender with a much stronger taste

  than its British counteq^art. The salad included all kinds of vegetables I had never seen before.

  There was silence as we set about our food. Then Luis broke it. "Isabel, I've been thinking. Would you like to come and work at the bank?" . Isabel looked at me anxiously, then at her father. "Doing what, exactly?"

  "Oh, I don't know. I'm sure we could find you something. You have lots of experience now. You could be very useful doing lots of things."

  'Tapai—"

  "It would be good for you. You could come back to Rio. Settle down—"

  "Papai!" Isabel glanced quickly at me and then glared at her father. She launched into a torrent of angry Portuguese. Luis tried to protest, but was cut off. Finally they both lapsed into silence.

  I cut my steak slowly and with great concentration. Luis began to speak. "I must apologize for my daughter—"

  "Don't worry about it," I said. "There's no point in having a family if you can't have a lively discussion every now and then. I was wondering," I continued quickly, "would it be possible to see afavela?"