Carioca Fletch

They ordered moqueca, another Bahian speciality.

“You did not even read Amado’s Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands while I was gone.”

“Tell me about it.”

“You said you could not sleep, of course, but you did not even read.”

“Somehow I kept busy.”

“Gambling with the Tap Dancers?”

“I relieved them of some of their inheritances.”

“I dare not even ask you about this country inn they took you to.”

“It had a swimming pool.”

“Riding around all day. So late to the Canecao Ball. Cristina said you were dressed as a movie cowboy.”

“An outfit I borrowed from Toninho.”

“I saw it in the closet.”

“I looked real sleek.”

“That you danced hours with that French film star, Jetta.”

“There was no one else to dance with her.”

“I’m sure.” Laura mixed her pirao with her farofa com dende. “Brazilians are not like this all the time. Only during Carnival. Brazilians are a very serious people.”

“I’m sure.”

“Look at our big buildings. Our factories. Our biggest-in-the-world hydroelectric plant. Everything here runs by computer now. At the airport, all the public announcements, in each language, are done by computer voices. And you can understand what they are saying perfectly.”

Through the window Fletch started to count the macumba fires on the beach.

“Marilia Diniz and I went this morning to the favela Santos Lima to see the Barreto family, to hear the story of Janio Barreto’s life and death.”

Laura did not seem interested in that. “You should read the novels of Nelida Pinon. Then you would know something of Brazilian life. Not just Carnival foolishness. Things are very different here in Brazil.”

“I know,” he said. “The water goes down the drain counterclockwise.”

“Anyway …” She removed a bone from her fish. “Last night, in Bahia, I agreed finally to do this concert tour.”

“Concert tour? You’re going on a concert tour?”

“Pianists who stop playing the piano stop being pianists,” she said.

“Where are you going? When?”

“In about a month. Bahia first, then Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Recife. Friends of my father have been urging me to do this, setting it up for some time.”

“I guess they want you to get serious.”

“I am an educated pianist. I’ve had good reviews. I like the idea of bringing so much Brazilian music to the piano.”

“You will have to work very hard to go on such a tour.”

“Very hard.”

“Practice a lot.”

“A very lot.”

“Do you want dessert?”

“Of course.”

They ordered cherry tarts.

“Fletcher,” she asked, “what are you serious about?”

“Sleeping.”

“Serious.”

“I’m serious about sleeping.”

“Sleeping is necessary, I guess.”

“I am seriously worried. You remember that woman I was to have breakfast with yesterday morning at The Hotel Jangada?”

“Who is she?”

“The woman in the green dress we saw on the avenida.”

“You didn’t want to see her.”

“I do now. Her name is Joan Collins Stanwyk. She’s from California.”

“That was clear, from looking at her. Her eyes looked as if she were watching a movie.”

“She’s disappeared.”

“People disappear in Brazil, Fletch.” Laura didn’t seem to want to hear about that, either. “What time are we to arrive at Carnival Parade?”

“Teo suggested about ten o’clock. I doubt he’ll be there much earlier than that.”

“I’ve never watched Carnival Parade from a box before.”

“I think he suspects this is the only year I’ll be here for it.”

Laura said nothing.

For a moment, Fletch watched her finish her cherry tart.

Then Fletch gazed through the window at the macumba fires on the moonless beach. A cheer was sent up from a samba crowd on the avenida.

He said, “Carnival…”

“The point of it is to remember that things are not always as they appear.”

Twenty-eight

“Welcome to the Samba School Parade!” Teodomiro da Costa said in the tone of a ring-master. He stood just inside the door of his box overlooking the parade route. He wore jeans and a T-shirt. On front of the T-shirt were printed a black bow tie and ruffles. In a more personal tone, he asked, “Have you eaten?”

“At the hotel.”

He looked into Fletch’s eyes and spoke just loudly enough for Fletch to hear him over the fantastic noise. “You have not slept.”

“Not yet.”

“Have a drink.”

“Guarana, please.”

Teo repeated the order to the barman.

“Laura!” Teo hugged her to his chest. “Did Otavio get home all right?”

“Of course. He just pretended to need help.”

“I think that’s what you do with daughters. You pretend to need their help when, actually, you do.”

The box was bigger than Fletch had expected, big enough for twenty people to move around in comfortably, to see, even dance, plus room for the sandwiches and drinks table, the barman.

Adrian Fawcett, the writer for The Times, was there, the Vianas, the da Silvas, the London broker and his wife, the Italian racing car driver and his girl friend. Jetta looked at Fletch with the resentment of someone who had been danced with but not loved. She did not look at Laura at all.

Everyone marveled at everyone else’s costumes, of course. Laura was dressed as an eighteenth-century musician, in breeches and knee socks, ruffled shirt front, gray wig. The Viana woman asked Laura if she had brought her piano to accompany her costume.

As Fletch moved forward in the box, glass of guarana in hand, he had the sensation that Rio’s volume knob was being turned up. Thousands of drums were being played in the area. Hundreds of thousands of people were singing and chattering and cheering.

Across the parade route, the stands were a sea of faces inclined toward the sky. Above the bright lights aimed on the route, thick, hot, smoky air visibly rolled up the stands and formed a thin gray cloud overhead.