Hotel Brasil

by Frei Betto

  DISAPPEARANCE

  Beatriz disappeared again during Carnival. Cândido thought that Delegado Del Bosco must have shopped her, but he got a call from Dona Dinó on Shrove Tuesday and was forced to admit his suspicions had been unfounded.

  “The girl phoned to say she’s fine. Senhor is not to worry and she’ll be back in a few weeks.”

  THE DEAL

  One morning, when Cândido had left for the publisher’s, Beatriz waited until Dona Dinó was distracted, then slipped out. She wandered about the city centre and hung out with a gang of kids on the steps of the Theatro Municipal. They were sniffing glue, but she turned it down when offered some. She begged for a snack from a lady stuffing her face with pastéis in the Edifício Avenida Central shopping arcade and the woman bought her a drink and a hot dog, more out of fear than kindness. Then Beatriz took off and headed towards Central do Brasil station.

  As night fell, she mixed in with carnival performers outside the sambódromo. She was watching a samba school warming up bodies and tambourines for the parade, when she saw a familiar face in the crowd. She went straight over and hugged him from behind, covering his eyes with her hands:

  “Guess who and win a prize.”

  He flinched, took hold of her hands and exclaimed, “Bia!”

  “Bola!” she cried, giving him a big hug.

  “Wow! Great to see you, garota!”

  He looked different. He was thinner, his eyes were deeper-set and his teeth had yellowed with nicotine. His limbs had lengthened and his movement had become more agile: there was little of the awkwardness and innocence that had previously defined him. She saw he was no longer a boy. She also saw he was dressed in smart clothes and had an expensive wristwatch.

  “Where’ve you been hiding?” he asked.

  “Around,” she answered evasively. Then she laughed, adding, “but now it’s all tudo bem.”

  “I play for the Pavão-Pavãozinho favela these days,” said Bola. “My game has won the trust of the guys with the grana.”

  “So I see, malandro,” she teased. “A career man now.”

  Bola took her by the hand.

  “Let’s go and talk over there.”

  Bola couldn’t believe his luck. His ex-girlfriend had landed in his lap like a gift from heaven. One deal would be enough to get her on board.

  Beatriz was surprised by the way she reacted to seeing Bola again. Feelings that had lain dormant suddenly stirred. When he took her by the hand and led her away from the samba schools, the woman taking shape inside her started doing somersaults. A warm sense of security turned into one of complicity, and before she knew it she was gripped by attraction.

  Up against the Cemitério do Caju wall, the stony eyes of a marble angel looking down on them, Bola kissed Beatriz on the lips and hungrily ran his hands over her anxious body.

  As she lay back naked on a gravestone, Beatriz smiled at the brightness of the stars that seemed to twinkle only for her, while Bola moved his body to the agonizing beat of the cuica drums coming from the sambódromo. His eyes ran over an epitaph behind Beatriz’s head, an apparent jumble of nonsense words: Fama fumus, homo humus, finis cinis?

  MULE

  Beatriz got to Foz do Iguaçu on Ash Wednesday, in a truck laden with sacks of cement. They crossed the border into Paraguay, she pretending to be the truck-driver’s daughter, and unloaded the merchandise. At an import emporium, the driver filled the truck back up with boxes of Chinese plastic knick-knacks – toys, cups, stationery – destined for fixed-price discount stores in Brazil.

  As they were leaving, the manager of the emporium gave the truck-driver’s “daughter” a present: a teddy bear almost as big as she was.

  Customs inspectors stopped the vehicle at the border back into Brazil. The driver showed them his documents and tax receipts and let them examine his load.

  The inspectors soon waved the truck through, paying no attention to the girl hugging the bear with enough cocaine in its belly to keep the Pavão-Pavãozinho favela dealing for a month.

  INTERLUDE

  “Odid, I fear losing Mônica. I don’t know whether jealousy is getting the better of me or whether Bramante really is interested in her, but whenever she walks in the room he gets as excited as I do. It’s as if her presence soothes an itch in our souls. She rejuvenates us.”

  “You need to find out what you mean to her,” said Odidnac.

  “She’s not stupid. She knows we’re both in thrall to her, but while she does her best to avoid Bramante, she’s warm and kind to me. Am I destined for ever to be the trusted friend, or have I got what it takes to be her man?”

  “Why don’t you ask her?” said Odidnac.

  “Every night I convince myself that I’ll open up to her in the morning. But then I lose courage as soon as I see her. I fear getting a loud and resounding não. Yet I know that if you never take a chance in life you get eaten up from the outside, like a hot bowl of mingau. It’s terrible to think that my own insecurities might stop her liking me.”

  “Or is this just the self-delusion of a lovesick heart?” said Odidnac.

  “Meu Deus, how it hurts suffering for love! Especially when you know the only cure is love itself! Time eases the suffering, and can even make it go away. But what time can’t heal is the wound.”

  DECLARATION

  “Now I accept,” said Cândido as he walked through the door. Mônica had invited him over for dinner and promised to cook camarões à la provençal, to rid him of his false impression.

  “Accept what?” said Mônica, smiling.

  “That drink you offered me last time I was here, that I never got to taste.”

  Mônica gave him a warm hug.

  “And there was something you were going to tell me that I never got to hear.”

  “Something I was going to tell you? I thought you were the one who had something to tell me,” said Cândido, returning her hug and kissing her on the cheek with a vigour that surprised himself.

  “OK, but there’s something important I have to do first,” said Mônica, removing herself from his grasp. She took his face in both hands and kissed him on the lips. Cândido felt as if he could walk on hot coals.

  He opened a bottle of vinho branco and offered to help in the kitchen.

  While Mônica cleaned the shrimp and marinated them in salt and orange juice, Cândido chopped up the garlic so fine it was as if he was trying to split atoms. She put the rice on to boil, adding nothing by way of seasoning, but lining the bottom of the pan with extra virgin olive oil. As she did so, a satisfying feeling came over her. Cândido was no lord of the manor, sitting in the lounge with a drink, eyes glued to the TV, waiting for the missus to make him his dinner. Cândido was a companion who stood by her side and breathed in the aroma of the garlic as it turned light blond in the hot oil, ready to be poured over the shrimp.

  He added a few splashes of molho de pimenta to the camarões, while she drizzled olive oil over the side salad.

  As the rice cooked on the hob and the prawns baked in the oven, Mônica and Cândido sat on footstools, glasses of vinho in their hands. They conducted a conversation in which their eyes said more than their words and feelings flowed with greater strength than their thoughts.

  When the food was ready, they tipped the pan of rice over the shrimp, added a little parsley and gave everything a good stir. They took the dish into the lounge, where the table lay beautifully set and candlelit.

  “What have you got to tell me, then?” said Mônica, as she opened a linen napkin over her lap.

  “It’s already been said with that kiss, meu amor,” replied Cândido. “Do you still have something to tell me?”

  Mônica thought for a moment.

  “Hold on,” she said, and stood up. “I’ve got something to give you.”

  She went into the bedroom, opened the drawer to the bedside table and came back clutching a bundle of letters.

  “There you go,” she said, handing them to Cândido and sitting back do
wn.

  “What are they?” he asked, intrigued.

  “Love letters I wrote to you but never had the courage to send.”

  “If you don’t mind,” said Cândido, “I’d like to read them later, when I get back to the hotel. That way, you’ll be by my side.”

  “Take them with you. I don’t want you sitting here reading them now.”

  “So, everything you have to say is written here?” said Cândido, patting the letters with his hand.

  Mônica frowned as she served up the food. Then she stopped and winced.

  “What I really want to tell you, I seem unable to write down. Remember when you said you wanted to go to Itaguaí to look for Beatriz?”

  “Sim. I thought she might have gone back to where she’d grown up. What about it?”

  Mônica put her elbows on the table and held her head in her hands. She looked up and stared straight at Cândido.

  “If we’re going to start a relationship, there are certain aspects of our lives we have to reveal to one another. I like things plain and straight, chocolate à espanhola. So listen carefully. When I was at university, I took part in student protests against the dictatorship. I didn’t belong to any particular faction of the left, I was just angry at the way the generals interfered with education. A march was arranged one Friday afternoon, going right through the centre of town and up to the obelisk on Avenida Beira-Mar. To outmanoeuvre the police, a special tactic was devised whereby protesters assembled in groups of five. The idea was that five people on their own wouldn’t arouse suspicion as they looked like passers-by, but then forty groups of five would merge together outside Igreja de Candelária and march as one down Avenida Rio Branco. They’d be joined by more groups of five at every junction, so if the police blocked the march off after one hundred or two hundred yards, a new wave of protesters would surge in behind them. I agreed to be part of a group of five that met on the corner of Avenida Rio Branco and Rua do Ouvidor. We set off like a human ant trail down the street. The police chose not to intervene and the march grew thicker as it made its way towards the obelisk. Everyone chanted protest slogans and we unveiled banners above our heads. I was wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt and joined in enthusiastically with a chorus of ‘Abaixo a ditadura!’ A protester came up to me outside Edifício Avenida Central and said, ‘I feel sick, I think I’m going to faint.’ She was about the same age as me and held her hand to her forehead. ‘Would you mind helping me get to a bathroom? I need some water.’ We went into the shopping arcade at the bottom of the building and down the escalators. I asked a man where the toilets were and he pointed to a bar at the back. When we got to the entrance of the bar, we were suddenly surrounded. I never found out whether they were police, military or paramilitaries. ‘You’re under arrest!’ a guy in a black leather jacket said. I started trembling with fear and tried to explain myself. The girl who’d asked for help had vanished. Doubtless she was bait and had gone back up to pull the same trick on another protester. The bar had been converted into a temporary prison. It was full of students. After a little while, I was taken out through the back, into Largo da Carioca, where I was put in a car with two men. One of them ran his hand over my body in a way that made me very uncomfortable. He asked me if I was carrying a gun. Then they blindfolded me with some kind of special dark glasses. The car set off in the direction of Praça Tiradentes. I tried to memorize the route and I managed up to a certain point, until fear got the better of me. Eventually I heard the sound of an iron gate opening and closing and I realized we’d gone into a garage or yard. I was taken out of the car and led into a building. A woman’s voice shouted at me: ‘Take those glasses off!’ She was old enough to be my mother. Her face was like a mask, round and white, with narrow eyes devoid of all expression. She was sitting on a chair behind a table and there was nothing else in the room, no other furniture except a dirty mattress chucked on the floor in a corner. I noticed there were no windows. ‘Documentos!’ said the woman. I told her that all I’d taken to the march were the clothes on my back. The woman took a ballpoint pen out and leaned over the table. ‘Personal details, then.’ She asked me my name and so forth and wrote my answers down on a sheet of yellow paper. ‘Do you know the student leaders?’ she asked. I barely managed to make my voice heard. ‘Não, I’m not affiliated to any group or political party.’ ‘I’m not asking you if you’re affiliated to terrorist groups!’ yelled the woman. ‘I asked if you know the student leaders.’ She opened a file and showed me a photo of a boy. ‘What about him?’ ‘I’ve never seen him before in my life,’ I said, honestly. The woman stood up and approached me menacingly. ‘Mônica, we know for a fact that you’re Alexandre’s lover, so the sooner you tell us where he’s hiding, the better.’ ‘Pelo amor de Deus,’ I said, ‘I swear I’ve never heard of the guy – I haven’t even got a boyfriend.’ The woman pinched me hard on the arm. I yelped in pain. ‘That’s just for starters,’ she said. ‘I’d refresh your memory quick smart if I were you. Tell me where Alexandre is now or I’ll hand you over to Paranhão – he just loves playing with little dolls like you.’ I began to whimper as cold shivers ran through me. The woman slapped me in the face. ‘Stop your wailing! Where is Alexandre hiding?’ I told her over and over again, through floods of tears, that I knew no one called Alexandre. ‘Senhora must have the wrong Mônica,’ I said, but the woman shouted abuse at me and said she’d soon jog my memory. ‘Take your clothes off!’ she demanded. I took off my top and trousers, shaking uncontrollably and feeling my limbs stiffen as I did so. The woman came over and yanked away my bra. ‘Take off your knickers!’ she yelled. I was left totally naked, stricken with panic. I knelt on the floor and started to pray out loud. The woman bent down and squeezed one of my nipples. ‘For the last time: where is Alexandre hiding?’ She didn’t even wait for an answer. She pushed me over, stood up and kicked me just above the kidneys. I curled myself into a ball and pleaded to God to let me die rather than suffer. ‘Bem,’ said the woman, opening the door. ‘As you refuse to collaborate, I’ll leave you in Paranhão’s capable hands.’ As she left, a huge man walked in, tremendously fat. All he had on was a pair of swimming trunks. He came over to me, walking like a bear, smiling mockingly. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me over to the mattress. ‘OK then, beleza, I’m going to make you come until you scream where Alexandre’s hiding.’ I tried to fight him off, I begged him to leave me alone, but he held me firmly by the wrists and pinned me down on the mattress. I was horrified but I went on fighting and kicking, until the man took off his trunks and slapped me so hard I passed out. When I woke, I was alone in the room. I was cold, my vagina burned and bled and my body was covered in cuts and bruises. I banged on the door but nobody came. I was left there until the following morning, when the woman reappeared. She gave me back my clothes and said, ‘Get dressed. You’re not the Mônica we’re looking for.’ I was put back in the car; my eyes were covered with the dark glasses again. They drove me to a petrol station in Aterro do Flamengo and pushed me out.”

  FRUIT

  There was a prolonged silence after Mônica had finished telling the story. They both stared at their hands as their fingers nervously arranged and rearranged the cutlery on the tablecloth.

  “I’d always thought the torture stories were exaggerations of the left,” Cândido murmured. “I was a humanities student at the time, at a college deep in the Minas interior. We were given the impression the military had saved Brazil from the communist threat. It was only later I found out that behind the facade of tranquility were prisoners, exiles, disappearances and deaths.”

  “Two months later,” Mônica went on, “I went to see a gynaecologist to find out whether the trauma justified my period being late. I found out I was pregnant. I was put under a lot of pressure to abort, but I decided to have the child. I couldn’t face submitting my body to further violence. But nor did I feel capable of raising a child I’d not planned for. I had a girl,” she said, staring straight at Cândido.

  He stared
back at her, saw that her face was starting to relax. They began eating: cold crustaceans.

  “I was young,” she said. “I didn’t have the resources to look after a baby, and I lacked the subjectivity and single-mindedness a mother needs to raise an unexpected child. Before she was even a month old, I gave the baby girl to a public orphanage. I was told no more about her, nor ever felt the need to know. But since meeting Bia, I’ve thought about my daughter a lot. At first, Bia’s presence made me uncomfortable. It reminded me of my baby. But gradually, Bia won me round.”

  Cândido raised his glass to his lips and savoured the way the wine moistened his tongue. He looked at Mônica with tender eyes.

  “Do you want to try and find your daughter?”

  “Não. That page of my life has turned, though I do remember her in my prayers. What I want is to find Bia.”

  “Mônica, if Bia reappears,” said Cândido, “I’d really like to adopt her, me and you. What do you think?”

  Mônica’s eyes welled up. She smiled.

  “It was that very certainty, Cândido, that awoke my love for you.”

  For dessert, they went to bed.

  11Nuptials

  “Mônica Kundali, do you accept Cândido Oliveira to be your lawfully wedded husband?” asked the priest. He was a fat friar with a red face, small hands and chubby fingers.

  “I do,” said the bride.

  Mônica was wearing a long, silky crêpe dress and had a fascinator of pink flowers in her hair. She was trying hard to hold back the tears, not wanting her make-up to run.

  Next it was the groom’s turn to give his consent. Cândido was overjoyed, except for one tiny detail: Beatriz was still missing.

  The congregation was packed full of the bride’s and groom’s friends and family. Dona Dinó had arrived wearing a yellow pleated dress, arm in arm with Diamante Negro. The transformista drew everyone’s attention in a bright-red top hat and tails with purple velvet collar and cuffs. Rosaura wore white and leaned shyly against Madame Larência, whose face was covered in an especially thick coat of cosmetics. Marcelo wore jeans and trainers in a lone protest against social convention.