Richard
Brazil, 1990–1991
The weeks and months following little Pablo’s death were a nightmare from which neither Anita nor Richard could escape. Bibi’s fourth birthday was extravagantly celebrated by the Farinha family in her grandparents’ house, to avoid the sadness that reigned in her own home. The little girl was passed between her grandmother and many aunts; she had always seemed too wise, serene, and well behaved, and yet at night she wet her bed. She would wake up soaked, stealthily take off her pajamas, and tiptoe naked into her parents’ room. She slept between the two of them, and in the morning occasionally found the pillow wet with her mother’s tears.
The delicate balance Anita had succeeded in maintaining during the years of her miscarriages was destroyed by the death of her baby. Neither Richard nor the unswerving affection of the Farinha family could help her, but between them they managed to drag her to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed a whole cocktail of medicines. The therapy sessions took place almost in silence: she refused to speak, and the psychiatrist’s efforts constantly came up against her profound sense of grief.
As a desperate last resort, Anita’s sisters took her to see Maria Batista, a respected lyalorixa, the mother of candomble saints. At transcendental moments in their lives all the women in the family had made the journey to Bahia to visit Maria Batista’s terreiro. She was a voluminous elderly lady with a permanent smile on a face the color of molasses. She dressed in white from her sandals to her turban, with symbolic necklaces cascading down from her neck. Experience had made her wise. She spoke quietly, and stared into the eyes and stroked the hands of all those who came to her to be guided along the uncertain path.
Aided by the buzios, her cowrie shells, she peered into Anita’s destiny. She did not say what she saw, as her role was to offer hope and solutions and give advice. She explained that suffering has no purpose and is futile unless it can be used to cleanse the soul. If she wanted to escape from the prison of memory, Anita must pray and ask for help from Yemaya, the orixa of life. “Your boy is in heaven and you are in hell. Come back to the world,” she told her. She advised the Farinha sisters to give Anita time; her reservoir of tears was bound to dry up at some point, and her spirit would heal. Life is persistent. “Tears are good, they clean inside,” she added.
Anita returned from Bahia as disconsolate as she had been when she traveled there. Indifferent to her solicitous family and husband, she turned in on herself. Apart from Bibi, she cut herself off from everyone. She took her daughter out of day care in order to always keep her within sight, to protect her with an oppressive, fearful love. Stifled by this tragic embrace, Bibi took it upon herself to stop her mother from slipping irrevocably down into madness. She was the only one who could dry her tears and lighten her pain with caresses. She learned not to mention her little brother, as if she had forgotten his brief existence, and pretended to be happy so as to entertain her. She and her father were living with a ghost. Anita spent most of the day dozing or motionless in an armchair, watched over by one of the other women in her family because the psychiatrist had warned about the risk of suicide. Every hour went by exactly the same for Anita; the days crawled slowly past and she had more than enough time to weep for Pablo and her unborn children. Maybe, as Maria Batista had said, the tears would eventually have dried up, but there was not time enough for that to occur.
RICHARD WAS AFFECTED more by his wife’s boundless despair than by the death of the baby. He had wanted and loved his son, but not as deeply as Anita, as he had not managed to grow close to him. Whereas Pablo’s mother nurtured him at her breast, cradling him in a constant loving litany, united to him by the powerful cord of maternal instinct, Richard was only just getting to know his son when he lost him. He had had four years to fall in love with Bibi and learn to be her father, but only one month with Pablo. Of course he was shocked at his sudden death, but it was Anita’s reaction that shook him even more. They had been together for several years and he had grown accustomed to her mood swings: in a matter of minutes she could change from laughter and passion to anger or sadness. He had found ways to cope with Anita’s unpredictable states of mind without growing upset. He put them down to her tropical temperament, although he only described her in this way well out of her earshot, to avoid her accusations of his being racist. However, he found he could not help her in any way over her grieving for Pablo. She could barely tolerate her own family, and still less him. Bibi was her only comfort.
In the meantime, the streets and beaches of the erotic city of Rio de Janeiro teemed with life. In February, the hottest month, people went around almost naked. The men wore shorts and often little else; the women, light dresses showing off their cleavages and legs. Beautiful, youthful, tanned, sweating bodies; bodies and more bodies on exuberant display. Richard saw them everywhere. His favorite bar, where he automatically headed in the evening to refresh himself with beer or numb himself with cachaça, was one of the regular haunts of Rio youth. Around eight it began to fill up, and by ten the noise was as loud as a clanking locomotive. The air was dense with the smell of sex, perspiration, alcohol, and perfume. Cocaine and other drugs were passed around in a discreet corner. Richard came so often he did not have to order his drink: the barman had it ready for him as soon as he approached the counter. He had become friends with several loyal customers like himself, who had then introduced him to others. The men drank, shouted conversation above the din, watched soccer on the screen, argued about goals or politics. Whenever they went too far and reacted angrily, the barman stepped in and threw them out. The girls were divided into two groups: the untouchables, who came in on a man’s arm, and the others, who came in groups to indulge in the art of seduction. If a woman appeared on her own, she was normally old enough to ignore the crude remarks and always found someone who would flirt with her in a friendly way, with the gallantry typical of Brazilian men that Richard found impossible to imitate, confusing it with sexual harassment. For his part he was an easy target for those girls who wanted to have fun. They accepted the drinks he offered, laughed and joked with him, and in the intimacy of the crowded bar caressed him until he was forced to respond. At those moments, Richard forgot Anita. They were innocuous games that presented no danger to his marriage, as would have been the case if Anita had acted in a similar fashion.
The young woman who Richard was never to forget was not one of the most beautiful of the girls he met during those caipirinha nights, but she was lively, with an uninhibited laugh, and keen to try whatever she was offered. She became Richard’s best party companion, yet he kept her out of the rest of his life. It was as if she were a tailor’s dummy that only came to life when she was next to him in the bar sharing alcohol and cocaine. He thought she meant so little to him that to simplify he called her Garota, the generic name for the beautiful girls from Ipanema made famous by the lyrics of the old Vinicius de Moraes song. She showed him the drugs corner and the poker table in the back room where the bets were low and you could lose without any serious consequences. She was tireless; she could spend the night drinking and dancing, then in the morning go straight to work as an administrator in a dental clinic. She gave Richard endlessly differing versions of the life she had invented for herself, in a frenetic, tangled Portuguese that to him sounded like music. By the second drink he would complain about his sad domestic life; by the third he was blubbering on her shoulder. Garota sat on his lap, kissed him until he almost suffocated, and rubbed herself against him with such exciting movements that he went home with stains on his trousers and a concern that was never quite remorse. Richard planned his days around his meetings with this girl who gave his existence color and flavor. Forever joyous and willing, Garota reminded him of the Anita of the early days, the one he had fallen in love with at the dancing academy, who now was slipping rapidly away in the mists of her misfortune. With Garota, Richard was once again a young man with no worries; with Anita he felt weighed down, old, and judged.
It was only a short distance between the bar and Garota’s apartment. The first few times, Richard went in a group. At three in the morning, when they threw the last customers out of the bar, some went to sleep it off on the beach or continue partying in somebody’s house. Garota’s apartment was the most convenient for this, as it was less than five blocks away. On several occasions, Richard woke with the first light of day somewhere it took him a few seconds to place. He would stand up dizzy and confused, unable to recognize the jumble of men and women sprawled on the floor or in armchairs.
Seven o’clock one Saturday morning found him on Garota’s bed fully dressed and with his shoes on. She was naked, arms and legs spread wide, head dangling and mouth wide open, a trickle of dried blood on her chin and eyelids half-closed. Richard had no idea what had happened or why he was there. The previous few hours were a complete blank. The last thing he remembered was a poker game in a cloud of cigarette smoke. How he came to be in this bed was a mystery. On several other occasions alcohol had betrayed him: his mind had emptied while his body carried on automatically. He was sure there must be a name and a scientific explanation for the condition. After a couple of minutes he recognized the woman but still could not explain the blood. What had he done? Fearing the worst, he shook and shouted at her without being able to remember her name, until finally she stirred. Relieved, he plunged his head in cold water in the sink until he ran out of breath and the world stopped spinning. He rushed out of the apartment and reached home with stabbing pains in his temples, his body shattered, and a devastating heartburn raging in his stomach. He thought up a last-minute excuse for Anita: he had been arrested by the police after a stupid row in the street, had spent the night in jail, and had not been allowed to phone home.
The lie proved unnecessary, because he found Anita in a drugged sleep brought on by her pills and Bibi playing silently with her dolls. “I’m hungry, Papa,” she said, clinging to his legs. Richard made her cocoa and got her a bowl of cereal. He felt unworthy of the little girl’s love; he felt stained, disgusting, and was unable to touch her before he had a shower. Afterward he sat her on his lap and buried his nose in her angel’s hair, inhaling her smell of curdled milk and innocent sweat. He swore silently to himself that from this moment on his family would be his first priority. He was going to devote himself body and soul to rescuing his wife from the dark well in which she was sunk and make it up to Bibi for all the months he had neglected her.
His intentions lasted seventeen hours. From then on, his nocturnal escapades became more frequent, longer, and more intense. “You’re falling in love with me!” Garota pointed out, and in order not to disappoint her he admitted it, even though love had nothing to do with how he behaved. His lover was disposable, she could have been replaced by dozens of others similar to her—frivolous attention seekers, girls afraid of being alone. The following Saturday morning he woke up in her bed again. It was nearly nine o’ clock. It took him a few minutes to find his clothes in the messy apartment, but he was in no hurry: Anita would probably be only half-conscious due to her pills, and wouldn’t get up until around noon. He was not worried about Bibi either, because this was the time of day that the maid arrived, and she would look after her. The vague sense of guilt he felt was becoming almost imperceptible. Garota was right, he was the only victim of this state of affairs because he was tied to a wife who was mentally ill. If he showed any sign of concern about deceiving Anita, she would repeat the old refrain: what the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t feel. Anita either was unaware of his flings or pretended not to notice, and he had the right to enjoy himself. Garota was a fleeting pleasure, nothing more than a footprint in the sand, thought Richard. Little did he imagine that she would become a scar he could never erase from his memory. His infidelity worried him less than the effects of alcohol. It took him hours to recover after a night on the town. He could spend the whole day with his stomach aflame and his body aching all over, unable to think clearly, his reflexes dulled. He floundered about as heavily as a hippopotamus.
That morning it took him a while to find his car, which was parked on a side street. He was also slow to put the key in the ignition and turn the engine on. A mysterious conspiracy left him moving in slow motion. There was little traffic at that hour, and despite his throbbing head he remembered the way back home. Twenty-five minutes had gone by since he woke up next to Garota. He urgently needed a cup of coffee and a long, hot shower. As he entered the driveway, his mind was on the coffee and shower.
Afterward he tried to find a thousand explanations for the accident. None of them was sufficient to blot out the precise image that stayed etched forever in his brain.
BIBI HAD BEEN WAITING for him at the front door. When she saw his car come around the corner she ran out to greet him, as she always did inside the house when he arrived. Richard did not see her: he felt the bump but did not realize he had run over Bibi. He braked at once, and it was then he heard the maid’s screams. He tried to convince himself he had hit a dog, because the truth already stealing into the back of his mind was too terrible to bear. A ghastly fear that instantly wiped away his hangover made him leap from the driver’s seat. When he could not see the cause of the accident he felt relieved for a moment. Until he bent down.
He was the one who had to pull his daughter out from under the car. The accident had not spoiled anything: the pajamas with their teddy bear design were still clean, she was still holding a rag doll in her hand, her eyes were still open with the expression of irresistible delight she always greeted him with. His heart beating wildly with hope, he picked her up with infinite care and clutched her to him, kissing her and calling her name. In the distance, from another universe, he could make out the cries of their maid and the neighbors, the horns from the blocked traffic, and later the police and ambulance sirens. When he eventually came to understand the magnitude of the disaster, he wondered where Anita had been at that moment, why he had not heard or seen her among the confused crowd milling around him. A long while later he learned that when she heard the squeal of brakes and all the noise, she had been on the second-floor window and from up there, frozen to the spot, she had witnessed everything. She saw her husband stoop down beside the car, saw the ambulance disappear up the street with its wolflike howl and ill-omened red light. From her window, Anita Farinha knew without a doubt that Bibi had stopped breathing, and she accepted this final stab of fate for what it was: her execution.
Anita went to pieces. She kept up an endless stream of incoherent utterances, and when she stopped eating was transferred to a psychiatric clinic run by Germans. Two nurses were placed at her bedside, one during the daytime and the other at night. They were so similar in their plump build and imposing authority that they looked like twins descended from a Prussian colonel. For a fortnight, these terrifying matrons took it upon themselves to feed Anita a thick liquid smelling of vanilla through a tube down her throat, to dress her against her will, and to almost carry her for walks around the patients’ yard. These walks and other forced activities, such as watching documentary films of dolphins or panda bears, intended to combat any destructive thoughts, had no appreciable effect on her. The head of the clinic suggested electroshock therapy, which he said was an effective and low-risk way of bringing her out of her state of apathy, as he termed it. The treatment would be administered under anesthetic and the patient was not even aware of it. The only slight drawback would be a temporary loss of memory, which in Anita’s case would be a blessing.
Richard listened to the explanation but decided to wait, finding it impossible to subject his wife to several sessions of electroshock therapy. For once the Farinha family supported him. They also agreed that her stay in that Teutonic institution should be no longer than strictly necessary. As soon as it was possible to remove the tube and feed her spoonfuls of nutritious baby food, they took the patient back to her mother’s home. If previously her sisters had been set on taking turns to care for her, after Bibi’s accident they did not leave her on her own for a minute. There was somebody with her day and night, watching and praying.
Once again Richard found himself excluded from the female world where his wife was languishing. He could not even get near her to try to explain what had happened and beg for forgiveness, even though forgiveness was impossible. Although no one accused him of it to his face, he was treated like a murderer. And that was exactly how he felt. He lived alone in his house while the Farinha family kept Anita with them. They’ve kidnapped her, he would tell his friend Horacio whenever he called from New York. To his father though, who also called regularly, he never confessed what a disaster his life had become. Instead he reassured him with an optimistic version according to which he and Anita, with help from a psychiatrist and the family, were getting over their grief. Joseph knew that Bibi had died after being run over but did not suspect it was Richard who had been driving the car.
The maid who had previously done the cleaning and looked after Bibi left on the day of the accident and never returned, not even to claim her wages. Garota also vanished, partly because Richard could no longer buy the drinks, and partly out of a superstitious fear: she thought that Richard’s tragedies were the result of a curse and that usually this was contagious. Meanwhile, the mess around Richard grew and grew. Rows of empty bottles littered the floor; in the fridge produce that had lost its original identity became covered with green mold, while dirty clothes seemed to multiply as if by magic. His unkempt appearance scared off his English pupils, who quickly stopped coming. For the first time, he found himself without funds; the rest of Anita’s savings had gone to pay the clinic. He began drinking cheap rum at home on his own because he owed money at the bar. He spent his time sprawled in front of the television, which was never switched off, trying to avoid silence and darkness, where his children’s transparent presence would float on the air. At the age of thirty-five he considered himself half-dead: he had already lived half his life and the other half was of no interest to him.
IT WAS DURING THIS DESPERATE PERIOD that Horacio, by now the director of the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies at New York University, decided to devote more attention to Brazil and coincidentally offer Richard a helping hand. They had been friends since their bachelor days, when Horacio was just setting out on his academic career and Richard was writing his doctoral thesis. Back then, Horacio had gone to visit him in Rio de Janeiro, where his friend received him with such generous hospitality despite his meager student budget that he stayed for two months. They took their backpacks and traveled to the state of Mato Grosso to explore the Amazon rain forest, forming one of those male friendships that has nothing sentimental about it but proves immune to distance and time. Later on, Horacio again visited Rio to be the best man at Richard and Anita’s wedding. They did not see much of each other over the following years, but their mutual affection was safely stored in their memories. They knew they could count on each other. When he heard what had happened to Pablo and Bibi, Horacio started calling his friend a couple of times a week to try to raise his spirits. Over the phone, Richard’s voice was unrecognizable. He slurred his words and repeated himself with the mindless insistence of a drunkard. Horacio understood Richard needed as much help as Anita.
Horacio was the one who told Richard about the vacant post at the university even before it appeared in the relevant journals, advising him to apply right away. The competition for the job would be intense, and he could not help him with that, but if Richard got through the necessary steps and had luck on his side, he might end up at the top of the list. His doctoral thesis was still referred to, and that was a point in his favor, as were the articles he had published. But since then more time had gone by than was customary; Richard had wasted years of his professional career lying about on the beach and drinking caipirinhas. He sent in his application without much hope, but to his great surprise two weeks later a letter arrived summoning him for an interview in April. Horacio had to send him the money for the airfare to New York. Richard prepared for the journey without telling Anita, who was still in the German clinic at the time, and convinced himself he was not doing this for selfish reasons. If he was offered the post, Anita would be much better looked after in the United States, where she could rely on the university’s health insurance to cover her care. Besides, the only way to reclaim her as his wife was to rescue her from the clutches of the Farinha family.
Following an exhaustive interview process, Richard was offered a university contract starting in August. He calculated there was time enough for Anita to get better and to organize their move. In the meantime he had to ask Horacio for another loan to take care of all the necessary expenses. He promised to pay him back out of the proceeds from the sale of the house, provided Anita agreed, as the property was in her name.
Thanks to his family fortune, Horacio Amado-Castro had never lacked money. At the age of seventy-six, his father still exercised a patriarchal tyranny from Argentina in the same steely manner as ever, although he was resigned to the misfortune that one of his sons had married a Protestant Yankee and two of his grandchildren did not speak Spanish. He visited them in New York several times a year, refreshing his vast love of culture with outings to museums, concerts, and the theater, as well as supervising his investments in several banks there. His daughter-in-law detested him but treated him with the same hypocritical politeness as he did her. For years the patriarch had wanted to buy a house that would do Horacio proud. The cramped Manhattan apartment where the family lived, on the tenth floor in a development of twenty identical redbrick buildings, was a hovel unworthy of a son of his. As soon as he was in his grave, Horacio would of course come into his share of his fortune, but everyone in the family went on to a ripe old age and he personally intended to live to be a hundred. It was stupid for Horacio to wait until then to live a comfortable life when he could do so beforehand, his father would say, clearing his throat and puffing on one of his Cuban cigars. “I don’t want to owe anything to your father. He’s a despot and he hates me,” said the Protestant Yankee, and Horacio did not dare contradict her. Eventually though, the old man found a way to convince his stubborn daughter-in-law. One day he arrived with an adorable little dog for his grandchildren, a ball of fluff with sweet eyes. They called her Fifi, little imagining that the name would soon be far too small for her. She was a Canadian Eskimo, a sled dog that grew to weigh over a hundred pounds. Realizing it would be impossible to deprive the children of her, his daughter-in-law gave in and the grandfather made out a substantial check. Horacio looked for a house with a yard for Fifi near Manhattan, and ended up buying a brownstone in Brooklyn shortly before his friend Richard Bowmaster arrived to work at NYU.
Considering his wife to be in no shape to grasp the situation, Richard accepted the post in New York without consulting her. He was sure he was doing what was best for her, quietly getting rid of almost all their possessions and packing up the rest. He found it impossible to throw away Bibi’s toys or Pablo’s baby clothes. Instead, he put them into three boxes, intending to entrust them to his mother-in-law shortly before leaving. He prepared Anita’s suitcases quite ruthlessly, knowing it was all the same to her. For months now she had only worn her gym clothes and had hacked off her hair with a pair of kitchen scissors.
His plan to find some excuse or other to rescue his wife and leave Rio without any melodrama failed when Anita’s mother and sisters guessed his intentions the moment he turned up with the three boxes. They sniffed out his plans like trained bloodhounds and were determined to prevent the journey. They pointed out how fragile Anita was: How was she going to survive in that dangerous city, with that complicated language, without family or friends? If she was depressed surrounded by her own family, how was she going to feel among American strangers? Richard refused to listen; his mind was made up. To avoid offending them he made sure not to say as much, but he thought it was time for him to consider his own future and not pay so much attention to his unreachable wife. For her part, Anita showed complete indifference toward her fate. It was all the same to her what she did, or where she was.
Armed with a bag containing her various medications, Richard led his wife to the plane. Anita boarded meekly without looking back or making any farewell gesture to her family, who were all standing in tears behind the airport’s glass wall. During the ten-hour flight she stayed awake, refusing to eat anything, and never once asked where they were going. Horacio and his wife were waiting for them at the airport in New York.
Horacio did not recognize his friend’s wife. He remembered her as beautiful and sensual, all curves and smiles, but the person who appeared before him had aged ten years, dragged her feet along the ground, and looked furtively from left to right as though expecting an attack. She did not return their greetings or allow his wife to accompany her to the restroom. God help us, this is much worse than I thought, Horacio murmured to himself. His friend did not look good either. Taking advantage of the free alcohol on board, Richard had been drinking for most of the journey. He had a three-day growth of stubble, his clothes were in tatters, he stank with a drunkard’s sweat, and without Horacio’s aid he would have probably been stranded in the airport with Anita.
The Bowmasters installed themselves in a university apartment that Horacio had arranged, intended for members of the faculty. This was a real find as it was in the center of Greenwich Village, had a low rent, and had a waiting list. After dropping their suitcases in the hallway and handing over the keys, Horacio shut himself in one of the rooms with his friend and gave him some advice. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of applicants for every vacant academic post in the United States, he told him. The chance to teach at New York University did not come up twice, and so he needed to make the most of it. Richard had to control his drinking and create a good impression from the outset. There was no way he could turn up in the filthy, messy state he was in now.
“I recommended you, Richard. Don’t make me look bad.”
“Of course I won’t. I’m half dead from the journey and leaving Rio, or rather, the escape from Rio. I’ll spare you the Farinha family tragedy over our departure. Don’t worry, in a couple of days you’ll see me at the university as good as new.”
“What about Anita?”
“What about her?”
“She’s very frail, I’m not sure she can stay on her own, Richard.”
“She’ll have to get used to it, like everyone else. She doesn’t have her family here to spoil her. I’m all she has.”
“Then make sure you don’t let her down, brother,” said Horacio as he left.