Carioca Fletch

parade route together acrobatically, tumbling, doing cartwheels, climbing each other, leaping off, being caught by others a centimeter before disaster, all the while singing, of course, doing all this in a choreography so intricate, so closely timed it has taken them the full year to study it, learn it, practice it. Some of the young men may have developed a capoeira routine which is so graceful while so vicious, so rife with genuine danger, that the sight of it might stop the spectator’s heart if the drums weren’t controlling the heart, keeping it going.

Adrian Fawcett says something to Fletch.

Fletch yells, “What?” but cannot hear even his own voice.

Adrian cups his hands over Fletch’s ear and yells with his full voice, virtually taking a full breath to blow out each word: “Think if all this energy, planning, work, skill the year ‘round went into revolution instead!”

Fletch nods that he heard him.

Interspersed among the alas, a few alegorias have passed, huge floats depicting scenes from the Amazon, one a section of jungle bejeweled by women in G-strings suggesting plumed birds in their tall, bright, feathered headpieces; slim boys-men with the heads of snakes slithering over the rocks; children with the heads of monkeys dancing in the trees. Another alegoria depicts an Indian village, live fire centering thatched huts, costumed Indians dancing with mythical fish-headed and monster-headed figures.

In the middle of the presentation comes a small float, a disguised pickup truck, really a sound truck with amplifiers aiming every direction. On the back of the truck-float, dressed formally like a nightclub singer, stands the Puxador de Samba, microphone close to mouth, singing over and over at fullest personal volume, belting out the lyrics of the samba school’s song for that year:

Like the Amazon flows our history,

Deep, mysterious and wide,

Of many brooks and streams,

Magically providing us with life.

After a few more alas does the bateria begin to pull out of the bull pen and join the parade. An entire army of drummers, perhaps a thousand or more powerful men from the ages of fifteen to whenever, uniformly dressed in dazzling costume, all beating their drums in patterns practiced all year, all singing, all dancing despite the size of their drums, pass by. The sound is overpowering. It is perhaps the maximum sound the earth and sky can accept without cracking, without breaking into fragments to move with it before dissipating into dust.

Near the end of the parade comes the samba school’s principal alegoria. In this case, for Escola Guarnieri that year, a nineteenth-century riverboat slowly comes down the parade route, if not full-sized at least impressively huge—as white, as delicate, as ornate as a wedding cake. Its prow moves majestically down the street high above the heads of the bateria. The bridge is proud in its height. Steam comes from its funnels. The cap of its whistle funnel rises and lowers, and doubtlessly the sound of a steamboat whistle comes out, but so high is the level of sound generally that even a steamboat whistle cannot be heard fifteen meters away. The white, gleaming hull moves by slowly. The mere sight of the upper decks and into the interior cabins and ballroom of the ship instantly creates the feeling of a grander day, grander people, a grander way to travel, to move, to be. Sedately move the side wheels of this riverboat, exactly as if they were thrusting water behind them. And as the riverboat passes, its stern turned up to be high above the final dancing ala behind it, the last to disappear down the stream of swirling costumed dancers and drummers, instant yearning for it fills the heart, the instant and full desire to experience again the passing of this ghost, this alegoria of the past.

“I think you’re going to have to tell me that there is life after Carnival,” Fletch said.

At the bar table at the back of the box, Teo laughed and handed him a sandwich.

Other people were coming to the back of the box for drinks and sandwiches.

“Does everything become real again?” Fletch asked.

Adrian Fawcett said, “Reality has hunkered down somewhere in my gut, assumed the fetal position, and promises only in whispers to return.”

The sound level had lowered to the merely very loud. Across the parade route, the bateria of Escola Santos Lima was organizing itself in the bull pen.

Jetta put her hand on Fletch’s shoulder. “Are you supposed to be some kind of a present?”

She looked thoroughly sound-struck, sight-struck, mind-blown, and jaded.

He smoothed his bright red sash.

“I’m a present,” Fletch said. “Maybe I’m a past. Maybe I’m a future.”

“And did you come par avion?”

Chewing, Teo said, “Did you and Laura come by subway?”

“Yes, Teo,” Fletch said honestly. “Never have I seen an underground transportation system so modern, so quiet, so clean.”

Dressed like a Christmas package and as an eighteenth-century musician, Fletch and Laura had ridden Rio’s subway to Carnival Parade at Teo’s suggestion. Everyone had told them they could not get a car or a taxi within kilometers of Avenida Marques de Sapucai.

The ten-year-old Janio Barreto had followed Fletch and Laura from The Hotel Yellow Parrot to Avenida Marques de Sapucai.

In the subway station he ducked under the turnstile onto the platform. Fletch thought the underground official saw him, but the man took no notice. Who would keep a wooden-legged boy off public transportation because he had no money? On the train, Janio stood away from them, not looking at them, not speaking to them.

Fletch pointed him out to Laura, briefly told her about him.

She seemed particularly disturbed by being following by a small boy on a wooden leg.

Janio hobbled after them through the dark back streets to the Carnival Parade. At the entrance to the boxes he was stopped. Security was very heavy there, very official. Even with tickets, Fletch and Laura physically had to force, squeeze themselves through the bodies of the guards. They would not let anyone, even or especially a ten- year-old boy on a wooden leg, through the entrance to the boxes without a ticket.

“Yes.” Fletch was aware Teo was watching his face. “A magnificent subway.”

The Italian racing-car driver came to the bar table. “There are some Indians out there calling for you.”

“Me?” Fletch asked.

The racing-car driver jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the area beyond the box rail.

Laura was dancing in the center of the box with Aloisio da Silva. The heat had caused her leggings to drop over her patent leather shoes.

On the packed earth between the box and the pavement of the parade route stood Toninho Braga, Orlando Velho, and Tito Granja. Again they were dressed as movie Indians. In that light, their shoulders and stomach ridges shone with sweat.

“Jump down!” Toninho shouted.

Fletch put perplexity on his face.

Cupping his hand over his mouth, Orlando shouted, “We need to talk to you!”

“Later!” yelled Fletch.

“About Norival!” shouted Toninho.

Tito waved his arm to encourage Fletch to jump down to them.

Fletch turned around.

Dancing with Aloisio, Laura’s eyes were on Fletch’s face.

Her own face was so expressionless it was unfathomable.

From behind him, Fletch heard the name Janio shouted.

He jumped the three meters from the box down to the Tap Dancers.