Lucia, Richard, Evelyn
Brooklyn
Richard
Brazil, 1985–1987
On the trips Richard Bowmaster had made over the years with Horacio Amado-Castro, they would usually head for somewhere remote that they reached first in the Subaru and then on their bikes, carrying backpacks and a tent. Richard felt the absence of his friend like a kind of death. Horacio had left a void in the space and time of his existence; there was so much he wanted to share with him. He would have come up with a precise and rational solution to the problem of the dead body in the Lexus, and would have carried such a dire task out without hesitation, in a lighthearted way. Richard on the other hand could feel the threatening peck of his ulcer, a frightened bird inside his stomach. “What do you gain by thinking about the future? Things follow their course and you can’t control anything, so relax, brother,” was the advice he had heard a hundred times from his friend. Horacio accused Richard of spending his life talking to himself, muttering, remembering, repenting, planning. He said that only human beings were so focused on themselves, slaves to their egos, navel-gazing, on the defensive even though no danger threatened them.
Lucia argued something similar. She gave as an example the Chihuahua, Marcelo, who lived eternally grateful in the present, accepting whatever might happen without worrying about any future misfortune that might add to all those he had previously encountered in his life as an abandoned dog. “Too much Zen wisdom for such a small creature,” Richard replied when she listed all these virtues. He admitted he was addicted to negative thoughts, as Horacio claimed. At the age of seven he was already concerned the sun would be extinguished someday and all forms of life on the planet would come to an end. The only encouraging sign was that this had not happened yet. Horacio on the other hand was not even worried about global warming: when the poles melted and the continents were submerged, his great-grandchildren would have died of old age or would have grown fish’s gills. Richard thought Horacio and Lucia would get on well together, with their irrational optimism and inexplicable tendency toward happiness. He was more comfortable in his reasoned pessimism.
On his camping forays with Horacio, every ounce of weight counted, and every item of food was calculated to keep them going until their return. A born improviser, Horacio made fun of Richard’s obsessive preparations, but experience had shown how essential they were. On one trip they had forgotten matches and after spending a night stiff and hungry they had been forced to go back. They discovered that making a fire by rubbing two sticks together is a Boy Scout fantasy. With the same care as he had taken in planning those adventures with his friend, Richard now organized the short journey to the lake. He made an exhaustive list of all they might need in an emergency, from provisions to sleeping bags and spare batteries for their flashlights.
“The only thing missing is a portable toilet, Richard. We’re not going to war; there are restaurants and hotels everywhere,” said Lucia.
“We can’t be seen in public places.”
“Why not?”
“People and cars don’t just disappear, Lucia. There’s likely to be a police investigation. They could identify us if we leave a trail.”
“No one notices anyone, Richard. And we look like a mature couple on vacation.”
“In the snow? In two vehicles? With a tearful young girl and a dog dressed like Sherlock Holmes? And you with that outlandish hair of yours. Of course we attract attention.”
Richard placed all their luggage in the trunk of the Subaru, left enough food for the cats, and before giving the order to set off called the clinic to find out how Três was doing. The cat was stable but had to remain under observation for a few more days. Next he called his neighbor to tell her he would be away for a short while, and to ask her to look in on the other three cats. He checked again that the wire holding the Lexus’s trunk was secure and scraped the snow and ice off the windshields of both vehicles. He imagined that the car’s documents were in order but wanted to make sure. In the glove compartment he found what he was looking for, plus a remote control and a key ring with a single key on it.
“I suppose the remote opens the Leroys’ garage.”
“Yes,” said Evelyn.
“And the key is to your house.”
“It’s not from the house.”
“Do you know where it’s from? Have you seen it before?”
“Señora Leroy showed it to me.”
“When was that?”
“Yesterday. She spent Friday in bed. She was very depressed, she said her whole body ached. She’s like that sometimes, she finds it impossible to get up. Besides, where was she going to go in that storm? But yesterday she felt better and decided to go out. Before she left she showed me the key. She said she found it in Mr. Leroy’s suit pocket. She was very nervous. Maybe because of what happened to Frankie on Thursday. She told me to check his sugar levels every two hours.”
“And?”
“Frankie was frightened by the storm on Friday, but yesterday he was fine. His sugar was stable. There’s a gun in the car too.”
“A gun?” spluttered Richard.
“Mr. Leroy keeps it for protection. For his work, he says.”
“What is his work?”
“I don’t know. Señora Leroy told me her husband would never divorce her, because she knows too much about what he does.”
“An ideal couple, apparently. I imagine he has a permit. But there’s no gun in here, Evelyn. Just as well, one problem less,” said Richard, checking the glove compartment a second time.
“That Frank Leroy must be a real bandit,” Lucia grumbled.
“We ought to leave soon, Lucia. We’ll go in tandem. If possible, keep me in sight, but stay far enough back to be able to brake, the road surface is icy. Keep your headlights on so that you can see and be seen by other drivers. If the traffic gets backed up, put your flashers on to warn those behind you—”
“I’ve been driving for fifty years, Richard.”
“Yes, but badly. One more thing: the ice is worse on bridges, because they’re colder than the ground,” he added, and with a resigned wave got ready to set off.
Lucia sat behind the wheel of the Subaru, with Evelyn and Marcelo as copilots. She had traced the route in red on the map, because she did not really trust the GPS and was afraid of losing sight of Richard, who had given her instructions to meet up with him at various points on the way if they were separated. They both had cell phones to keep in contact. It was impossible for the journey to be any more secure, she told Evelyn to reassure her. As they left Brooklyn she tailed close behind Richard; there was no traffic, but the snow was an obstacle. She missed listening to her favorite music, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell, but realized that Evelyn was praying in a low voice and so it would not be respectful to distract her. Marcelo, who was not used to traveling in a car, lay groaning on the young woman’s lap.
DESPITE THE GREEN PILL he had taken before they left, Richard was very anxious. If the police stopped him and inspected the car, he was done for. What reasonable explanation could he give? He was in someone else’s possibly stolen car, and in the trunk was the body of the unfortunate Kathryn Brown, whom he had never met. It had been there for many hours, but given the frigid temperatures it was probably stiff. In theory he would have liked to see her face to remember it later on and to examine her body to see how she had died, but in practice neither he nor Lucia, much less Evelyn, had any desire to reopen the trunk. Who really was the woman traveling in the car with him? From what Evelyn had told them about the Leroys, the young woman could have been murdered to keep her mouth shut if she had discovered something that incriminated Frank Leroy. As Evelyn had said, his mysterious activities and violent conduct gave rise to sinister speculation. How had he managed to get fake documents for Evelyn? He must have had illegal ways of doing so. Lucia had told him the young Guatemalan had a Native American identity document.
He wished he could call his father to ask for advice, or more exactly to boast a little, to show he wasn’t a good-for-nothing but could embark on a crazy adventure like this, and yet it would be unwise to mention what he was up to over the phone. He was sure his father would enjoy meeting Lucia; those two would get on very well. “Providing of course we come out of this alive . . . I’m getting paranoid, as Lucia says. Help us, Anita, help us, Bibi,” he implored out loud, as he often did when on his own, as a way of feeling accompanied. “Now I need protection rather than company.
He could sense the presence of Anita so strongly that he turned to see if she was sitting in the seat alongside him. It would not have been the first time she had appeared, but she always came and went so fleetingly that he doubted his own faculties. He rarely allowed himself to be carried away by fantasy, considering himself rigorous in his reasoning and scrupulous in checking facts, but Anita had always escaped those parameters. At sixty, launched on a crazy mission, half paralyzed with cold as he had not turned the heating on to preserve the frozen dead body in the trunk, and with the window wound halfway down to prevent the windshield from misting or freezing over, Richard reflected yet again on his past, with the knowledge that his happiest years had been those with Anita before disaster struck.
He had been truly alive then. By now he had forgotten their everyday problems, the language and cultural misunderstandings they had encountered frequently, as well as the constant interference from his in-laws; the nuisance of uninvited friends roaming his house at all hours; Anita’s rituals, which he considered pure superstition; and above all her explosive reaction whenever he drank too much. He did not remember her in moments of crisis, when her golden eyes turned the color of pitch, or her frenzied jealousy, her blind rages, or when he had to cling to her in the doorway like a jailer to prevent her from leaving. Now he simply remembered her as he first knew her: passionate, vulnerable, and generous. Anita, with her savage love and ready tenderness. They were happy. The fights never lasted long, and the reconciliations went on for entire days and nights.
RICHARD HAD BEEN A SHY, studious boy with chronic stomach ailments. This saved him from having to take part in the brutal sports of American schools and inevitably led him into academic life. He studied political science, specializing in Brazil because he spoke Portuguese, having spent many of his childhood vacations with his maternal grandparents in Lisbon. He wrote his doctorate on the actions of the Brazilian oligarchy and their allies that led to the 1964 overthrow of the political and economic model adopted by the charismatic left-wing president João Goulart. He was ousted in a military coup backed by the United States following the “Doctrine of National Security” to combat communism, as was the case with so many governments on the continent, before and after Brazil. Goulart’s presidency was replaced by a succession of military dictatorships that lasted for twenty-one years, with periods of harsh repression, involving the imprisonment of opponents, censorship of the press and culture, torture, and disappearances.
Goulart died in 1976, after more than a decade of exile in Uruguay and Argentina. The official version put his death down to a heart attack, but popular rumor had it that he had been poisoned by his political enemies, who were afraid he might return from abroad to stir up the dispossessed. Since no autopsy was ever carried out, these suspicions could not be proven, but years later this gave Richard the pretext to interview Maria Thereza, Goulart’s widow, who had returned to her country and agreed to receive him for a series of conversations. Richard found himself in the presence of a lady with all the poise and self-assurance guaranteed by being born beautiful. She answered his questions but could not shed any light on the doubts surrounding her husband’s death. Even so, that woman, the representative of a political ideal and a period that were already part of history, created in Richard an ongoing love for Brazil and its people.
He arrived there in 1985, just before his twenty-ninth birthday. By then the dictatorship had softened, some political rights had been restored, there was an amnesty program for people accused of political offenses, and censorship had been relaxed. More importantly, the government had allowed the opposition to triumph in the 1982 legislative elections.
Richard was present for the first free presidential election. For a student of politics like himself it proved to be a fascinating moment. The military government and its followers were rejected, and the opposition candidate won, but in one of history’s low blows, he died before he could take office. It was his vice president, Jose Sarney, a big landowner close to the military, who was called upon to usher in the “New Republic” and consolidate the transition to democracy. Brazil was facing huge problems on all fronts: it had the largest foreign debt in the world and was mired in a recession; economic power was concentrated in a few hands while the rest of the population suffered inflation, unemployment, poverty, and inequality that condemned many to permanent hardship. There was more than enough material for the topics Richard wanted to research and the articles he intended to publish, but alongside these intellectual challenges was the permanent temptation to enjoy his youth to the fullest in the hedonistic atmosphere in which he found himself.
He rented a student apartment in Rio de Janeiro, exchanged his harsh Portuguese accent for the softer Brazilian one. He learned to drink caipirinhas, the national drink of cane liquor and lime that hit his stomach like battery acid, and cautiously ventured out into the city’s vibrant life. As the most attractive girls were on the beaches or dance floors, he began to swim in the sea and decided to learn to dance, something he had never felt the need to do before. When Anita Farinha’s dance academy was recommended to him, he enrolled to learn the samba and other popular dances, but like so many white men he was too stiff and self-conscious. Although he was the academy’s worst student, his efforts proved worthwhile, because it was there that he met his true love.
ANITA FARINHA ATTRACTED Richard at first sight, with the exuberant shape of her body, her narrow waist, sturdy legs, and rounded butt that swayed with every step she took, although there was no hint she was flirting. Music and grace were in her blood. In the academy her splendid nature was evident, but outside work Anita was a formal, reserved young woman who behaved impeccably and was extremely close to her extended, noisy family. She practiced her own religion, but not fanatically: a mixture of Catholic and animist beliefs, seasoned with female mythology. Every so often she went with her sisters to a ceremony of candomble, an African slave religion that had been limited to black Brazilians in the past but was now gaining followers among the white middle class. Anita had her guardian orixa, her divine guide in the realization of her destiny: Yemaya, the goddess of motherhood, life, and the oceans. She explained this to Richard the only time he accompanied her, but he took it as a joke. Like many of Anita’s customs, this paganism seemed to him exotic, enchanting. She laughed with him, because she only half believed in it. It was better to believe in everything than in nothing: that way she ran less risk of angering the gods, just in case they did exist.
Richard pursued her with a crazy determination totally unexpected in someone so levelheaded, until he had been accepted by the thirty-seven members of the Farinha family and finally succeeded in marrying her. To achieve this he had to make countless courtesy calls without mentioning the reason for them. He was accompanied by his father, who traveled to Brazil especially for that purpose, as it would have been improper for Richard to have gone to Anita’s family alone. Joseph Bowmaster wore strict mourning clothes due to the recent passing of Cloe, the woman he loved so dearly, but wore a red flower in his buttonhole to celebrate his son’s engagement. Richard would have preferred a private wedding, but Anita’s family and close friends alone came to more than two hundred guests. On Richard’s side there was only his father; his friend Horacio Amado-Castro, who arrived from the United States by surprise; and Maria Thereza Goulart, who had developed a maternal affection for the handsome American student.
The president’s widow, who was still young and beautiful—she had been twenty-two years younger than her husband—captured all the guests’ attention and was a valuable support for Richard in the face of Anita’s overwhelming clan. It was she who made him see the obvious: by marrying Anita he was also marrying her family. The wedding was not arranged by the bride and groom but by Anita’s mother, sisters, and sisters-in-law, all of them gossipy, affectionate women who lived in permanent communication and poked their noses into every aspect of each other’s lives. They attended to everything, from the wedding banquet menu to the butter-colored lace mantilla Anita had to wear because it had belonged to her deceased great-grandmother. The role of the men in the family was a more decorative one; their domain, if they had one, was outside the home. All of them were so friendly toward Richard that it took him a long while to realize that the Farinhas as a whole did not trust him. None of this affected him, because the love he shared with Anita was the only thing that really mattered. At that moment he could never have imagined the control the Farinha family would exert over his marriage.
The couple’s happiness redoubled with the birth of Bibi. Their daughter arrived in the second year of their marriage, just as Yemaya had predicted in the buzios, the fortune-telling conch shells. She was such a gift that Anita feared the price the goddess would demand for this wonderful child. Richard laughed at the quartz bracelets and other safeguards against the evil eye that his wife wore. Anita forbade him to boast of their happiness; it was dangerous to stir up envy.
The best moments of this period, which years later still set Richard’s heart racing, were when Anita curled up on his chest like a gentle cat or sat astride his knees and buried her nose in his neck, or when Bibi was taking her first steps with all her mother’s grace, a broad smile displaying her milk teeth. Anita in an apron chopping fruit in summer; Anita at her academy writhing like an eel to the sound of a guitar; Anita purring fast asleep in his arms after they had made love; Anita heavy with her watermelon belly, leaning on him to climb the stairs; Anita in the rocking chair with Bibi at her breast, singing softly in the orange glow of evening.
Richard never allowed himself to doubt that those years were the best for Anita as well.