City of God (60 page)

The almost-dead moon above the clouds showed signs of life from time to time, the stars were faint and only the New Year's Eve fireworks lit the night, Tiny's night, the night he'd be the boss of City of God again. He stopped by Block Thirteen, but didn't find any of the bosses, so he left a message for Tiger and Butterfly saying that he was already back in The Flats and that if anyone was still dealingin the area, he was ordering them to stop. He headed for The Flats, driving a blue Corcel. He went straight to the shops, where he slapped the
cool guys on the back and bought sweets for the children, saying he'd learned to read and drive, that he was boss in Realengo, but this was the place where he most liked to be in charge.

At 11.30, a boy told him that Tiger and Butterfly were over on The Hill waiting to have a talk, but for him to go unarmed because a talk was just a talk. No fighting.

‘What do they wanna talk about? Hey? Hey?'

‘They said it's for your own good.'

He was quiet for a minute and considered not going, but if he didn't they might think he was scared of something. He was Tiny – he was afraid of nothing.

‘OK, OK, tell 'em I'll come as soon as I finish my beer … Off you go, off you go, go tell 'em, go!'

He waited for the boy to move off, looked around and saw there was no one from Block Thirteen watching him, took a pistol from his waistband, and put it in a holster strapped to his ankle. His friends adjusted their own weapons and they headed for The Hill.

The square in The Hill was empty, except for Tiger and Butterfly crouching between a post and a wall. They'd ordered some of their men to hide in the buildings and join the fight at the sound of the first shot.

Tiny and his friends walked up to Tiger and Butterfly.

‘We've decided we're keepin' the den, know what I'm saying? This story that the den used to be yours ain't right, you know. We didn't take the den from you, we took it from the guys that took it from you, OK!' said Tiger.

‘What's all this, man? Didn't we agree that …'

Butterfly cut him off, reiterating what his pal had just said. Ignoring him, Tiny subtly raised his hand to his forehead, glanced at one of his friends and made the sign of the cross. Tiger, who was watching him intently, whipped his pistol from
his waistband, shot Tiny in the abdomen and took off running with Butterfly. The sound of this first shot sparked off a commotion and the pawns, who had been hiding, disbanded in disarray. Tiny and his mates took advantage of the confusion and headed downhill, firing in all directions. During their escape Tiny shot a pawn right through the head.

The quartet crossed the square in The Flats, ran into the first building, and entered a flat where a family was celebrating New Year's Eve. The gangsters ordered them to shut the door, then Tiny sat on the sofa, his eyes rolling back in his head, went into convulsions and died as the New Year's Eve fireworks began.

His friends went up another three flights of stairs, entered another flat and aimed their guns at the owners. At daybreak they calmly left the building, caught the bus and headed back to Realengo.

Over on Block Thirteen, early in the morning, Tiger had a boy grind up glass and pour it into a tin together with wood glue. When it was ready, he stretched a kite string from one post to another and coated it with the mixture. He waited for it to dry, made the bridle, the tail, and hoisted the kite into the air to tussle with others in the sky.

It was kite-flying time in City of God.

This novel is based on true stories. Part of the material used was taken from interviews conducted for the project ‘Crime and Criminality in the Lower Classes', by anthropologist Alba Zaluar, and articles in the newspapers
O Globo, Jornal do Brasil
and
O Dia
.

More specifically, the first part of the book was written during the studies ‘Crime and Criminality in Rio de Janeiro' (with support from the Studies and Projects Fund –
FINEP
) and ‘Justice and the Lower Classes' (with support from Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq, the Rio de Janeiro State Research Foundation –
FAPERJ
, and the University of Campinas Development Foundation – FUNCAMP), both co-ordinated by Alba Zaluar. The idea for the novel itself arose when Alba began to write up her articles on the project. I worked with her for eight years and I thank her for her constant encouragement.

The second and third parts of the novel were conceived with the valuable support of Roberto Schwarz, Virgínia de Oliveira Silva and Maria de Lourdes da Silva. I especially thank Roberto Schwarz for his guidance and encouragement in my application for a Vitae Arts Scholarship.

I thank the University of Rio de Janeiro's Institute of Social Medicine, which hosted the study for two years and, finally, the
Vitae Foundation, which, in granting me a scholarship, made it possible for me to finish writing the novel and give the text its final form.

I thank the following people for their collaboration: Maria de Lourdes da Silva (historical research and revision), Virgínia de Oliveira Silva (linguistic research and revision), Álvaro Marins, Edmundo Gomes da Silva, Ednaldo Gomes da Silva, Eduardo Gomes da Silva, Edwaldo Cafezeiro, Everardo Cantarino, Gilberto Mendonça Teles, Ione de Oliveira Nascimento, Leonardo Gomes da Silva, Marco Antônio da Silva, Maria Cláudia Nascimento de Santana, Marie-France Depalle, Paulo Cesar Loureiro de Araújo, Regina Célia Gonçalves, Severino Pedro da Costa, Sílvio Correia Lima and Sônia Vicente Cardoso.

A very special thank you to Aloísio da Costa Sobrinho, Carlos Eduardo Cardoso, Edison Gomes da Silva, Sônia Maria Lins and all of the people interviewed.

Paulo Lins

*Most of the characters in this book are followers of the Afro-Brazilian religion Umbanda, which contains elements of
macumba
, Roman Catholicism and South American Indian practices. The definitions below pertain specifically to Umbanda.

orixá (orisha)
– generic designation for the divinities worshipped by the Yoruba from the south-west of Nigeria, Benin and the north of Togo, taken with the slaves to Brazil, where they found their way into a number of Afro-Brazilian religions, including Umbanda.

Exu
– messenger of the spirits.

exu(s)
– each of many entities of an inferior spiritual plane, who oscillate between good and evil.

pombagira
– a female exu, who speaks through a medium and is often consulted by believers seeking advice about the future, protection and/or revenge.

terreiro
– indoor or outdoor site where Afro-Brazilian religious rites are held.

Many people have been of inestimable help in the preparation of this translation. I would like to thank Alberto da Costa e Silva for his help with African and Yoruba words and culture, Tom Wilkinson for his help with drug terminology, Glenn Johnston for his help with everything pertaining to guns and bullets, David Coles for his help with football terminology, Daniela Travaglini, Heloisa Jahn and Joaão Crespo for allowing me to constantly pick their brains about the Portuguese original, Antoônio Carvalho and Lynne Reay Pereira for their invaluable observations as my first readers, and Paulo Lins himself for his patient explanations of a world which so many of us could not even begin to understand were it not for this book.

Alison Entrekin

Alison Entrekin is the translator from the
Portuguese of
Budapest
, by Chico Buarque

(also published by Bloomsbury), which was shortlisted
for the 2004
Independent
Foreign Fiction Prize. She lives
in Brazil.

Paulo Lins was born in Rio de Janeiro and at age seven
moved to City of God, where he was raised. He
escaped the cycle of violence there to become an
internationally celebrated writer. He still lives in Rio.

First published in Brazil as
Cidade
de Deus by Editora Schwarcz Ltda in 1997
First published in Great Britain in 2006

This electronic edition published in October 2011 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Copyright © 1997, 2002 by Paulo Lins
Translation copyright © 2006 by Alison Entrekin

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All rights reserved You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages

Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 36 Soho Square, London W1D 3QY

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

eISBN: 978-1-40882-734-5

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