Carioca Fletch

Twenty-seven

“You’re not becoming a Brazilian,” Laura Soares said over the dinner table. “You’re becoming a Carnival Brazilian.”

When Fletch dragged himself back to his room at The Hotel Yellow Parrot, sunburned, caked with salt, the bottoms of his feet fried from just the walk up the beach from the ocean to the car, Laura was waiting for him, curled up in a chair studying sheet music, full of questions about where they would dine, full of enthusiasm for spending the night watching the Carnival Parade from Teodomiro da Costa’s box.

Tiredly, he greeted her. She helped him shower. On the bed he wanted to sleep. She teased him into giving her a warmer greeting than he thought possible in his sleepless condition. They showered again.

She was dressing when he came out of the bathroom.

On the white trousers and white shirt he had laid out to wear that night, she had placed a wide, bright red sash.

“Is this for me?” he asked.

“From Bahia.”

“Am I to wear it?”

“To the Carnival Parade. You will look very Brazilian.”

“I am to wear a red sash without a coat?”

“Why would anyone wear a coat over such a beautiful red sash?”

“Wow.” After he dressed, she helped him adjust it. “I feel like a Christmas present.”

“You are a Christmas present. A jolly Christmas present wrapped in a red ribbon for Laura.”

They decided to dine in the dining room which was on the second floor of The Hotel Yellow Parrot.

Through the floor-to-ceiling open windows they could see the macumba fires on Praia de Copacabana. Believers spend the night on the beach tending a fire, having written a wish, or the name of their illness, on a piece of paper which they launch in the first moments of the outgoing tide. On the first night of the year especially there are thousands of fires on the beach.

The hotel restaurant was said to be one of the best in the world. It was rare in that the restaurant’s kitchen was exactly twice as big as the seating area.

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 Canecão 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 dendê. “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 Piñon. 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.”