Remember Why You Fear Me

by Robert Shearman

  That was what Gladwell believed, and there seemed a certain sense to that at the time.

  My wife checked the weather conditions in Rio de Janeiro, and had my suitcase packed with the right clothes, formal and not quite so formal, laundered and neatly ironed. And on the flight I looked in my hand luggage and, yes, there she’d enclosed both a Portuguese phrase book and a travel guide to Brazil. I whiled away an hour or two practising a few words—‘obrigado,’ ‘por favor,’ ‘este e o caminho para . . . ?’ On the pages of the guide book she had fixed post-it notes to get my attention—yellow for things she recommended, red for those she disapproved of. A warning about the street crime around ATM machines earned a red sticker, as did a little article about easy hedonism. One of the few yellow approved passages showed a picture of Christ the Redeemer, some giant statue of Jesus with his arms out on top of a big hill. At last I put the book away. On the front cover there it was, the statue, Jesus overlooking the city from on high, his arms spread wide as if he were playing at aeroplanes.

  I stayed focused for the eleven hour flight to Sao Paulo. It was only on the one hour connecting flight to Rio de Janeiro that I began to fall drowsy, much to my annoyance, and that was why when Saras’ representative greeted me after immigration with cheek kissing that I was so uncharacteristically flustered. She said she’d take me to my hotel. But first she would take me to meet Mr. Saras. Mr. Saras, she said, was very excited to see me.

  I recognized Saras at once, of course, but he still wasn’t what I was expecting. You could see how that mouth could be turned into a sneer, but for now it was all smiles, and he greeted me like a long lost friend, he rose from his table and gave me a hug. He was smaller than I expected, but he stood confident as if he were tall, as if he thought he were tall and no one had told him he wasn’t, he didn’t shrink into himself or hunch his shoulders the way old men sometimes do—he may have been nearing eighty, but I’d have taken him for sixty-five, and his brown beard had only flecks of grey in, and I wondered whether he had it dyed. He asked me about the flight, he asked me if he could order me any food, anything I wanted, I must be hungry—he said that business class travel might pride itself upon the quality of its meals, but they still left him feeling gassy and bilious. (I didn’t tell him Gladwell had only flown me economy; I didn’t tell him that I wanted any food. I didn’t want either first impression I made to suggest I was either cheap or greedy.) He complimented me on my little attempts at Portuguese when I spoke to the waiter, told me I’d got the accent just right—and I looked for any sign of sarcasm but he sounded sincere enough; “Some foreigners find Brazil a little dangerous, I think,” said Saras, “but you have no need to worry, you’ll blend right in, you seem like a native already!” I didn’t feel like a native, sweaty in my business suit, still woozy from the flight, but I thanked him with the best accent I could muster. “Obrigado,” I said. “You’re welcome,” he said, and smiled with perfect white teeth.

  And then he frowned, and it was a frown of concern. “Forgive me,” he said, “I can see you’re very tired. You must go back to your hotel and rest. There will be much opportunity for us later to talk. I do not anticipate any difficulty with our negotiations, I was just eager to see you. Take the day to relax, and we can have dinner tomorrow? I have a favourite restaurant in Santa Tereza, I will send the car for you. You will like it, I think.” He stood up, and I did the same, and he shook my hand. “And I’ll introduce you to my wife.”

  Santa Tereza was a little town up in the mountains; it was the artistic hub of the city, and as I stepped out of the car I could already see all the long haired hippy types spilling out from tavernas too small to contain them, smell their alcohol, smell their dope. And Miguel Saras was the king of them, standing right at their centre, this proud old man with his court of young fools, letting them stand in his shadow, letting them laugh at his jokes, drinking his wine and drinking in his genius. When he saw me he came straight over, he broke a path through them without a second thought, some of them got elbowed aside and smiled with delight as if it had been a blessing. “My friend!” he said, and clasped my hands. “I shall take such care of you tonight. I shall make sure you meet everybody!”

  And it seemed that I did. There was much hugging, much kissing of cheeks, and Mrs. Saras was the only failure, the only hiccup in the social whirl. But I began to feel as the parade of youths went ever on, as they beamed at me so enthusiastically whilst I told them how much I was enjoying Brazil, how different it was to England, how happy they must be here, that their expressions of intent were becoming ever more extreme—they would laugh uproariously at my jokes that really weren’t jokes at all, they would hang on to every platitudinous word I uttered with eyeblazing fascination, nod in delight, then turn away and laugh. And it was the turning away that bothered me, the fact that the laugh was meant to be something private. “Our business here won’t take long!” said Saras to me, but it was like a pronouncement, and everyone shut up and listened. “My new friend from England, we have such a simple thing to discuss. And then he will be free to enjoy the best that Brazil can provide!” More laughter all round, more wide-eyed enthusiasm, those eyes so wide they looked ready to pop out of their skulls. “So,” Saras said to me, looking at me full in the face at last, “this freedom, what will you do with it?”

  And it suddenly felt like a test. Saras waited for my answer. His minions, they waited for my answer.

  I tried to remember the guide book, the bits highlighted with yellow post-it notes. “There are some good parks here,” I said.

  “The Botanic Gardens are excellent,” agreed Saras.

  “And there are museums.”

  “There are always museums.”

  “And I might pop up to see Christ the Redeemer,” I ventured. “That looks very good.”

  “Oh, it is,” said Saras, “it is very good. Yes. You must see that. All the tourists must see that. You must see it, tick it off the list.” And he laughed. “It’s a remarkable achievement,” he said, “one of the seven wonders of the world, did you know? And the only wonder in Brazil.” And he laughed. “Standing up there on a seven hundred metre mountain, arms open wide, Christ looking down on us, we are all under his protection, we all feel safe.” And he laughed, and he laughed. “You must go to Christ! And maybe, maybe I will come with you!” And everyone laughed with him.

  One of his disciples brought me a mug to drink from; it smelled meaty, and it was steaming. “This is our national dish,” said Saras, “this is feijoada. You must try it. Try it, and you will be a Brazilian.” I sipped at it. It was like drinking gravy, it was like the contents of a steak and kidney pie mashed up and liquefied in a blender. “You must try it,” said Saras, so I drank it down like a good boy, and managed not to baulk as the thick black gloop became progressively more chewy.

  I hadn’t seen Mrs. Saras for a while, maybe not for a couple of hours—it was hard to work out how much time had passed. And she wasn’t part of that swell of bodies around me, around Saras—and Saras didn’t want her near, didn’t speak to her again once we’d had that introduction. I thought maybe she’d gone home. I hoped she had. But now there was a plucking at my sleeve, and I turned around, expecting to see some new young woman wanting to kiss me, some new young man wanting to pump me by the hand and ask me to use my accent. Mrs. Saras was there beside me, and she was recoiling again, recoiling it seemed at the very touch of my shirt, that her fingers were anywhere near my skin, that she was obliged once more to acknowledge me.

  “What?” I asked her.

  And she didn’t say anything, didn’t smile. She just tipped her head towards the door, and left the restaurant. She didn’t even turn back to see if I were following her. But of course I was.

  Outside she took a breath of air, as if relieved she was away from that stifling heat indoors—but the heat was just as stifling out here, and to me it barely seemed fresher. She took out a cigarette, put it in her mouth, nodded her head towards me expectan
tly.

  I didn’t have a lighter. I don’t even smoke. She didn’t care. She waited whilst I went back inside to fetch one, and when I returned she was in the same pose, her head jutted to where I had been standing, only frowning maybe with a little more impatience. She took the light. I saw that moustache. She blew out smoke through her nostrils, through those too-flared nostrils, and I don’t know how they did it, but as the smoke billowed out they flared even wider still, they found a little more give in them, they bulged and gaped. “Obrigado,” I said, although I’m quite sure I don’t know why.

  “I don’t think I caught your name,” I said to her.

  “I have never been to Cristo Redentor,” she said. “Your Christ the Redeemer.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You should. It looks good.”

  “My husband will not take me. But you. When you go, you will take me.” And there was a slight upward inflection to that, but not quite enough to make it a question.

  “Well, maybe,” I said. “Maybe we can all go together.” She stared at me. I tried to look away. “Your English is pretty good, actually,” I said. “Well done.”

  And at this she tilted her head a little, looking at me as if trying to work out the joke—and then smiled. And it was an ironic smile, I think, I don’t think there was much warmth to it. But it was a smile nonetheless.

  Then she looked away from me. And carried on smoking, flapping those big nostrils of hers about like sails in a storm.

  “Well, anyway,” I said, and I made to go. And she caught my hand in hers. Not tight, it almost seemed as it could have been an accident, as if her fingers had just been clasping away for something and the fingers they’d clasped on to happened to be mine. She didn’t turn around to me. It was as if she didn’t even know she was touching me, as if she had no idea I was still there, only her left hand knew. The right hand had no idea, it was too busy pumping that ugly face of hers with smoke. And she stood still, looking out at the other people, out at Rio de Janeiro, out at the night skies, out at Christ glowing in the dark far above us, out at anything except me.

  It took her maybe three more minutes to finish her cigarette. Then she dropped it to the street, ground it underfoot with one deliberate brutal twist of her shoe, looked at me at last, not a smile. “Come,” she said. And we went back inside. Somehow before we got in there my hand had been freed.

  Saras greeted me as if he hadn’t seen me in days. “My friend, my dear friend,” he said. “I shall have to go home soon. I am an old man, I need my sleep.” I was relieved to hear it, it was two o’clock in the morning. “Our business is nearly concluded, I shall sign upon your dotted line. And what you have done for me, to take my work to your little country, to make it English, it is the act of a brother. A brother!” He hugged me.

  “Well, you’re very welcome,” I said.

  “You must not stay at the hotel,” he said. “An airport hotel. You must stay at my house. On Ipanema Beach, it is very beautiful. And there we can choose which of my works you shall display. Which of my art is your favourite?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “They’re all very good.”

  He smiled at that. “Then we will find out. We will create our exhibition together, you and I! Yes? Yes. But first, I just need to ask you something. And my English, it is good, but sometimes the right words are hard . . . ”

  “Oh yes?” I said. “Well, if I can help.”

  “I have mastered construction and grammar, but I have the occasional lapse at vocabulary. What is it, what you say, when a dog . . . Ach. The noise it makes?”

  “Barking?” I said.

  “That’s it,” he said. “That’s it exactly. So, before our business can proceed. Before you stay in my house! Will you bark for me, please?”

  “Do what, sorry?”

  “I want you to bark like a dog. I want you to bark for me. Like a dog. Like a little dog. Come on. Come on. Bark for me. Bark for your supper. You can bark for me, can’t you? Bark like the little dog you are.”

  I tried to make light of it. “I don’t mind barking,” I said, “but is there any particular dog you would want me to be, maybe you have something in mind, ha . . . ”

  “The next thing you must say,” he said, cutting through, silencing me, silencing me with that steel voice. “The next word you speak, it must not be in English. It must be in dog.”

  “Yip yip,” I said. “Yip yip yip.”

  And he smiled, he grinned, and the room relaxed, and I felt sick inside, I felt the gravy I had eaten bubble up at the embarrassment. And I saw Mrs. Saras’ face, and it glared at me, it was filled with such raw contempt—and for that moment I hated her, I felt I could actually kill her.

  “Good,” said Saras. “And we will send the car to your hotel, yes? And pick up your bags, and bring them to my house, yes? Yes?”

  “Yes,” I said. And I glanced over to where Mrs. Saras had been standing, but she’d gone, she’d already walked away. “Yes, that would be fine. Obrigado.”

  I have never deceived myself that I am an attractive man. I know I possess charm, and it’s a charm that can cut a swath through the boardroom, and is sharp like a knife at a very particular sort of business meeting. But it’s not a charm that has ever made much impression on the weaker sex. Women don’t like me. I don’t know why. I am not an ugly man, I believe. I work with a lot of men on a daily basis, sometimes under very trying circumstances of great stress in which ugliness can be emphasized, and I think some of them end up looking very ugly indeed, and I fancy I am no uglier than the average of them. I understand seduction, of course, I understand the nature of it and how it works and what a useful weapon it can be. I have closely observed some very fine seducing in my time, and I think I have learned much from it—but as an observer only is the point I’m making here, rarely as seducer, even rarer as seducee.

  And for those of you who will criticize, who would seek to remind me that I have a wife (as if, quite frankly, a wife like Margaret would be something I could easily forget), I will point out that she is the daughter of a senior management executive in her own right, and she not only appreciates the need to seize opportunities as they present themselves, she in fact urges me on to seize ever more of them, to search them out and grasp hold of them hard—and saying all the while that I shy away from that, shy away from making something of myself, something worthy of her and her father (her father being, as I say, a management executive, and one who gives every intimation that he has spent his entire life thus far seeking out and seizing at every opportunity he can get), saying that I don’t have an eye for the main chance, saying I’m letting all my potential slip by, saying that I’m wasting time, that I’m a waste, saying it all with a regularity that is undoubtedly consistent and logical but rather wearying to boot. By allowing myself the opportunities afforded by Mrs. Saras I had my wife’s most guiding maxims in mind. And if it’s likely that the actual circumstances would be something Margaret would regard with no little disapproval, I am certain that she can still take pride in the fact that by letting Mrs. Saras into my bed I was following her most cherished principles to the letter.

  By the time I had reached the Saras house its master had long since retired to bed, and so, I thought, had its mistress. The car that had taken me back to the hotel had waited whilst I packed my bags and checked out, and I had done both as quickly as I could; the roads were empty and the driver was fast; even so, I didn’t reach Ipanema beach until half past four in the morning. The house was dark and silent. A maid led me to my room. If I had thought that the guest bedroom of a multi-millionaire would be better than my suite at the airport hotel I was disappointed—the room was small, largely unfurnished, and smelled of paint. There was a ceramic sink set into one corner where I could wash, but no mirror in which I might see what I was doing. The bed was hard and short. The light was a single naked bulb, hanging down from the ceiling. The maid didn’t say a word to me, and I suspected she couldn’t speak English, but sh
e may simply have been rude. I wasn’t sure whether to offer her a tip. I decided not to.

  I say the room was unfurnished. It wasn’t, quite. There was one picture on the wall. A picture where the mirror should be, so I was forced to look at it as I blindly brushed my teeth. It was a picture of a small dog. It was not a good picture; the dog’s body seemed rather elongated, as if the artist had painted the head and then realized he had more canvas to fill with the torso than he’d hitherto expected. The legs were strange and stumpy, one of which was a different length to the others, another extended not to a paw but to a smudge; the legs didn’t look as if they even belonged to a dog at all, let alone this dog, this dog that seemed so out of proportion that he’d have required thicker legs just to support his frame, surely? The dog was faced out towards me, and its tongue was lolling out, and its mouth was set into a grin, the whole thing designed no doubt to be a pose of ordinary genial dogginess—but there was no joy to the expression on that face, the eyes were flat and dead. And there was no context to it, no background, not even a hint of colour, the misshapen beast just standing there on plain white. I took a closer look at the picture. I was surprised to see that it was signed: ‘Saras.’ One of his lesser works, then.

  I finished washing. I put on my favourite of the three pyjamas that Margaret had packed for me, the pair with the stripes, the ones that seemed a little jaunty. I got into bed, and, tired as I was, decided to look at the guide book once more before turning off the light. But I could so easily have put it out, I could so easily have been in darkness—and that’s what made it so much more fortunate for Mrs. Saras that when she came into my room without even knocking that she didn’t disturb me.

  She was still dressed. Though not, I realized later, in the same clothes she had worn to the restaurant in Santa Tereza earlier that night. I was too surprised to see her in my bedroom at all to be surprised by this little fact as well—but in retrospect, I must admit, it bothers me. Did she change clothes in the middle of the night in anticipation of my arrival? And if so, why did she not try to make more of an impression? Because she still looked awful. The dress she had worn at the party had not exactly been flattering; this replacement was no better, the colours were dull, they hung off her baggily.