Carioca Fletch

“I must figure out the words for it.”

“Not hard.”

“To say it rapidly. With firmness.”

“Come. I want you to meet da Silva.” Slowly Teo guided Fletch by the elbow across the terrace. “Is Laura with you, or with her father?”

“With me.”

“Ah! You are so lucky.” Teo then introduced Fletch to another sixty-year-old businessman, Aloisio da Silva.

Immediately, da Silva said, “You must come to my office. I have a new computer system. The very latest. Digital. From your country.”

“I would be very interested in it.”

“Yes, You must come tell me what you think.”

The houseman brought Fletch his screwdriver.

“Also, perhaps you have noticed my new building going up. How long have you been in Rio?”

“I was here for three weeks, then I was in Bahia for two weeks. I am back three days.”

“Then perhaps you have not noticed my building?”

“Rio is so vibrant.”

“Of course. It is in the Centro. Near Avenida Rio Branco.”

“I did notice a new building going up there. Very big.”

“Very big. You must come and see it with me. You’d be very interested.”

“I’d like that.”

“It is amazing what a difference computers make when it comes to building a building.”

Marilia Diniz appeared with her glass of cachaca. She kissed Aloisio and Fletch on their cheeks.

“Are you well, Aloisio?”

“Of course.”

“Rich?”

“Of course.”

Marilia forever remained a surprise to Fletch. She had to be the only person in Rio with no sun-color in her face. She saw people from a different perspective.

“Marilia,” Fletch said. “Something happened to us after we left you.”

“Something always happens in Rio.” She sipped her cachaca. “Listen. Teo has some new paintings. He has promised to show us them after dinner.”

“Otavio, perhaps you would help me to understand something.”

“Yes?”

Fletch and Otavio Cavalcanti stood alone at the edge of the terrace, looking at the moonlight on the lagoon. Otavio was drinking Scotch and water.

In Brazil, even distinguished scholars and poets are to be called by their first names.

“Does the name ‘Idalina Barreto’ mean anything to you?”

“No.”

“She is not a famous eccentric?”

“Not that I know.”

Laura was across the terrace talking with the Vianas.

“I wonder if it is a scam.”

“A what?”

“A swindle. Some sort of confidence trick.”

“Ah, yes. Trick.”

“This afternoon Laura and I were accosted by an old woman, a macumbeira of some sort, maybe, dressed in a long white gown, an old woman. She said her name is Idalina Barreto.”

From the terrace the samba drums could be heard only faintly.

“Yes?”

“She said I was her husband.”

Otavio turned his head to look at Fletch.

“Her dead husband. Janio Barreto. A sailor. Father of her children.”

“Yes…”

“That Janio was murdered when he was young, at my age, forty-seven years ago.”

“Yes.”

“Are you hearing me?”

“Naturally.”

“She demands that I tell her who murdered me.”

Otavio was looking at Fletch as had Laura, as had the doorman at The Hotel Yellow Parrot. Then his eyes shifted in a circle around Fletch’s head.

“Will you help me to understand this?”

Then Otavio took a drink. “What’s there to understand?”

At the long table at dinner they talked of the magic in much Brazilian food which provides so much energy, the masses of sugar usually placed in the coffee, in the cachaca, the sweetness of cachaca anyway, the dende oil in the vatapa they were having for dinner. The drink, guarana, is without alcohol and also gives energy. It was said by the Indians that it cleared the blood channels going to and coming from the heart. Fletch had discovered that it relieved tiredness.

Down the table, Laura said, “Bananas are good for you, too. There is potassium in bananas.”

Then Marilia asked about the paintings Teo had bought.

“I’ll show them to you after dinner. Perhaps, first, Laura will play for us.”

“Please,” said the Viana woman.

“Certainly.”

“Then I will show them to you,” Teo said.

Aloisio da Silva asked Fletch, “Have you visited the Museu de Arte Moderna?”

“Yes.”

“I should think you’d be very interested in that building.”

“I am very interested in the building. It is a wonderful building. And I had a splendid lunch there.” The people at table became silent. “There were few paintings in the museum when I was there.”

“Ah, yes,” Marilia said.

“I was thinking of the building,” Aloisio said.

“There was a fire …” Teo said.

“All the paintings were burned up,” the Viana woman said. “Very sad.”

“Not all. A few were left,” Viana said.

Aloisio blinked at his plate. “I was thinking the building would interest you.”

Fletch said, “The paintings in the museum got burned. Is this another case of queima de arquivo?”

The silence at the table was complete.

From the head of the table, Teodomiro da Costa looked down at Fletch. A virus a few years before had given da Costa’s left eye a permanent hooded effect, which became worse when he was tired, or wished to use it on someone. He was now using it on Fletch.

“It is a good thing, I think,” Fletch said into the silence, “for the artists of each generation to destroy the past, to begin again. I think perhaps it is necessary for them.”

It was many moments, then, before conversation flowed smoothly again.

“You have Laura, I see. I am glad.” Viana sat next to Fletch on the divan in the living room. They were waiting for Laura Soares to play the piano. “You must be very careful of women in Rio.”

“You must be very careful of women everywhere.”