Crimes of August: A Novel: 5 (Brazilian Literature in Translation Series) (22 page)

“This measure in no way diminishes the work done till now by Inspector Pastor, about whom I have the most positive references.”

Pastor had been removed because of pressure from the military and from
UDN
leaders stemming from Lacerda’s accusations of bias on the part of Pastor, a Vargas supporter, in conducting the investigation of the attack. Sílvio Terra enjoyed the confidence of Lacerda, the military, and
UDN
politicians, and nothing could shake that confidence. By all indications, however, none of them had read the book he had written in 1939, coauthored by Pedro Mac Cord, a hefty 464-page volume entitled
Politics, Law, and Culture
. In that book, which featured immediately after the title page a full-page official portrait of Vargas in profile, in tailcoat and wearing the presidential sash, was an interesting chapter on the New State, on page 103.

“The legislative branch, represented by the Federal Congress, that is, the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate, did not constitute a legal safeguard of the interests of the people,” said Terra. “For these reasons, President Getúlio Vargas, on December 10, 1937, excised in timely fashion the cyst forming in our national democratic system. With the New State was born a strong democracy. President Vargas bestowed upon the nation a new constitutional charter. In reinforcing central power, he extended his democratic prophylaxis to the system, impracticable among us, of universal suffrage. The constitutional charter of November 10, 1937, is a document of great historical value. It will be for posterity a symbol of national grandeur.”

THE UDN HAD ORGANIZED
in order not to let a day go by without offering anti-Vargas speeches in the Chamber and Senate.

Deputy Herbert Levy began his speech by saying the country was witnessing at that moment the final act of a tragedy initiated in 1930. “Honest men, impeccable citizens like the incorruptible Carlos Lacerda, the symbol of what Brazil could offer as the best of moral resistance, were threatened by assassins protected by the holders of power. It mattered little that those directly or indirectly responsible who had pulled the strings of the killer puppets were individuals linked more or less intimately to the president of the Republic; it was already definitively known that the moral climate making possible an attack that had outraged public opinion had been created by the president of the Republic.”

THE SHACK
where Climerio Euribes de Almeida was hiding was used by his friend Oscar only to store wood that he gathered in the forest. The best wood was used by Oscar to make posts, which he sold to neighbors to repair their barbed-wire fences. The poor-quality wood went into the wood-burning stove in his house. The Tinguá forest had lots of good timber.

That day, Climerio left his hideout and descended the hill to have lunch with his friends. After lunch Climerio and Oscar went to the banana grove, leading two mules with yokes, to haul back the stalks of bananas that Oscar had cut that morning. They had just finished loading the mules when Oscar heard a noise coming from the sky.

“What’s that noise, my friend?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Listen careful . . . Over there, what’s that?”

Oscar had never seen a helicopter.

“What’s what?”

“Something strange, way over there. It’s gone.”

As they had only a machete and a sickle with them, Oscar suggested that Climerio take the mules to unload while he stayed behind to cut more bananas.

Climerio took the mules and unloaded the banana stalks in a bin in the rear of Oscar’s house. After this labor, Climerio was very tired and asked Honorina for a cup of coffee.

“It looks like it’s going to be cold today,” Honorina said.

Oscar would cut stalks of green bananas and leave them beside the banana trees. He worked quickly, as he wanted to cut the largest number of stalks possible before nightfall. When the day began to darken, he picked up the sickle and the machete and headed home.

He was walking along a dirt road when he was suddenly surrounded by armed soldiers, some of whom were leading dogs on leashes. Startled, Oscar dropped the sickle and the machete.

“What’s your name?” asked an officer who detached himself from a group of soldiers.

“Oscar, yessir, at your service.”

“Is there a man living in your house?”

“No, sir.”

“Simplício Rodrigues, who runs a store in the village, said your brother-in-law Climerio is staying at your house.”

“Oh, my friend Climerio. Yes, he was here, sir.”

“Your friend is a wanted killer,” said the officer. Two soldiers grabbed Oscar by the arms, one on each side, and the officer ordered the farmer to show where his house was.

Honorina watched the soldiers search her house without saying a word.

“Where’s the man?”

“He ran away,” said Honorina. She said that Climerio had fled half an hour earlier, when he sensed the arrival of the soldiers.

The officer, on his radio, mobilized the remaining groups taking part in the operation.

All the highways in the region were closed off. No vehicle crossed the barriers without being searched, its passengers identified and searched.

Night fell. More and more soldiers and equipment poured into the command post set up in Tinguá.

At ten o’clock that night, operations were suspended and scheduled to resume at five a.m. the following day.

In his flight through the woods toward the cabin on the hillside, Climerio had ripped the blue pants he wore and destroyed his shoes. In the cabin, he took off the torn pants and donned another pair. In place of the destroyed shoes, he put on a pair of clogs. He ate spaghetti and beans heated in the cabin’s wooden stove. Before plunging into the woods he grabbed the .38 revolver, loaded with six bullets, and the fifty thousand cruzeiros delivered to him by Soares at Gregório’s orders.

After running and walking, disoriented, in the darkness that quickly enveloped the forest, lashed and at times injured by tree branches, Climerio, a fat man, sat down, fatigued, by a tree, resting his back against it. He was trembling from fear and cold; he ran his chilled hand over his pockmarked face.

The night was thick, without even moonlight to dissipate, however slightly, the absolute darkness that enveloped him.

seventeen

THAT TUESDAY MORNING
, as troops of the army, air force, and navy, supported by planes, helicopters, and military vehicles, closed the circle around Climerio, on the Tinguá mountainside, Colonel Adyl, accompanied by a heavily armed escort, taking prisoner João Valente, second-in-command of the now-defunct personal guard of president Vargas, invaded the Catete Palace and headed for the guards’ former lodgings, where they broke open desk drawers and filing cabinets and apprehended all the private correspondence and other papers of Lieutenant Gregório Fortunato, along with close to three hundred thousand cruzeiros in cash. The mission was fast, lasting only about ten minutes. The invasion would be made public in the Chamber and the Senate, by the opposition, as proof that “the government no longer governed.”

A short time later, the secretary of war was honored by the commander and other officers of the First Cavalry Regiment of the Dragoons of Independence, in the São Cristóvão barracks.

In addition to that homage to Zenóbio, one more was scheduled for that Tuesday. Beginning at 2:30 p.m., black cars carrying high-ranking army chiefs and the upper ranks of officers of the Rio de Janeiro garrison, led by General Odilio Denys, commandant of the Eastern Military Zone, began arriving at the War Office. They were to demonstrate to General Zenóbio his comrades’ solidarity for his decisive action in maintaining the elevated prestige of the army and the nation. Responding to the greeting of General Denys, General Zenóbio said, “Comrades! Trust me, as I trust you!”

IN THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES
, the majority leader, Capanema, constantly interrupted by asides and clamors of protest from the minority deputies, said that Getúlio’s resignation was not a demand from the people; it was a demand from a political party, the same political party that had tried to prevent his taking office with the celebrated argument of the absolute majority, that had recently attempted to remove him from the Catete by a groundless impeachment. That episode, that exploitation of the death of Major Vaz, was one more step in the struggle begun almost four years ago to remove the president in any way possible, whether by instigating the people, instigating the press, or instigating the armed forces.

From the floor came shouts of “murderer, dictator, criminal,” pronounced against Vargas. Led by members of the
UDN
, opposition deputies began a chant that echoed loudly in the Chamber: “Res-ig-na-tion! Res-ig-na-tion! Res-ig-na-tion!”

The president of the Republic, Capanema continued amid the hubbub from the floor, could not resign because he needed to defend, for the good of the people, the essential works of his administration and constitutional stability. Capanema reiterated an argument he had used repeatedly. Now he responded to Deputy Bilac Pinto to tell him not to hypothesize the peaceful succession of Vice President Café Filho, not because Capanema lacked confidence in the serene and correct expectation of the armed forces but from fearing and foreseeing that resignation as demanded by a passionate minority against the majority of the people, thrown in the face of the poor, the workers, the laborers, the soldiers, would subvert public order, and be so upsetting to tranquility and order, that the nation from one moment to the next might face a conflagration of disastrous and unpredictable consequences; because, once the spark of revolution was struck, who could any longer assure the preservation of institutions?

SOON AFTER CAPANEMA ENDED HIS SPEECH
, Vitor Freitas met with his “group of independents” to relay the information he had received from his “friend in the palace.” What Freitas said was received with surprise and apprehension by the other legislators. According to his palace informant, an emissary from the president, Márcio Alves, had left that day for Minas Gerais, on a secret mission for Vargas, to enlist the support of governor Juscelino Kubitschek for imposition of a state of siege in the country.

Some members of the group doubted the veracity of the information.

“Why didn’t Getúlio choose Capanema or Tancredo for that mission?”

“It would be impossible for either of them to do it secretly,” answered Freitas. “Capanema spoke to General Dutra to get support for Getúlio and everybody knows about it. The choice of Márcio Alves was clever. He’s an intimate friend of Amaral Peixoto and his wife; he’s intelligent, discreet, and loyal to the government. The right person for a delicate mission like that.”

“Does Lacerda already know about it?”

“Certainly. He has the same informants as I do.”

“Then the
UDN
is going to try to pull a coup first.”

“They’ll have to convince the military.”

“The air force is already more than convinced.”

“But the army’s in charge, and the army is undecided. Zenóbio, Estillac, Denys—everything depends on them, and for now they don’t know what to do.”

“The
UDN
is trying to influence the military in several ways. One is by the pressure of public opinion. The large newspapers are playing the opposition’s game.
Última Hora
, which in the past strongly supported the president, strikes me as cowed lately.”

“Getúlio received Assis Chateaubriand this morning.”

“Let’s see how Chateau’s newspapers behave from now on. In any case, Getúlio has already lost the battle for public opinion.”

A SHORT TIME
before finishing his shift, Inspector Mattos received some information from the clerk, Oliveira:

“Remember that Portuguese with the oranges? Mr. Adelino?”

“Of course. His son falsely confessed to a homicide. I charged the old man with physical assault resulting in death and made it clear that the circumstances demonstrated that the agent had not intended that fatal outcome.”

“Right, you felt sorry for him . . . But it didn’t do any good. The old man had a heart attack and died.”

Mattos had already handed over duty to Inspector Maia when the jailer came to say that the cell boss Odorico wanted to talk to him.

“Want to come with me?” asked Mattos.

“They want to talk to you,” Maia excused himself. “Make believe you haven’t relieved me yet.”

In the lockup the prisoners were arguing. When they saw Mattos they ran to the bars. Their simultaneous complaints were silenced by a gesture from Odorico, the boss of the cell.

“Sir, just a quick word. We know you’re about to end your shift, but we don’t have nobody else to ask.”

Mattos took an antacid from his pocket, placed it in his mouth, and chewed.

“Whenever you’re in charge of the precinct, you empty the lockup a little. But the situation keeps getting worse. This week five more arrived that not even you can let go, they’ve been convicted. There’s not even room in here to move. There’s barely space for everybody to sleep at the same time.”

Mattos approached the bars. The prisoners, pressed against the bars, seemed like a double wall of bodies.

“Open the door,” Mattos told the jailer.

Mattos entered the lockup. He walked about the cell. The prisoners pressed against one another to let him through. Even so, Mattos rubbed against the dirty bodies of the inmates, smelling their fetid breath.

“We can’t get any sun, or exercise. It’s horrible. Can’t you arrange for some of us to be transferred to the penitentiary?”

“I’ll see, Odorico, I’ll see.”

Mattos knew there were no vacancies in the penitentiaries. And that all the other precincts’ lockups were also beyond normal capacity.

“At least the food’s better, isn’t it?”

“It’s better, but food ain’t everything.”

“I’ll see, Odorico, I’ll see.”

Mattos left his shift, caught the streetcar, thinking about Odorico and the other prisoners in that filthy, stinking cell. He thought about Mr. Adelino. What was his orange grove like? Sweet oranges? He, Mattos, could only eat sweet oranges, which had less acidity. He thought about the son, Cosme, his pregnant wife. The world he lived in was shit. The entire world was shit. And now he was going to the home of a luxury procuress to do the work of a vulture, his heart heavy and his mind laden with problems. The black man who had killed Paulo Gomes Aguiar wasn’t Lieutenant Gregório, as his ingenuous hastiness had led him to suppose. Now he needed to find a black man who was big and strong—the macumba priest Miguel could also be eliminated from his deliberations. He needed to locate the doorman Raimundo. He needed to connect all the dots. He needed to investigate the murder of Old Turk even though the case was in a different jurisdiction and prospects were very unpleasant, since he suspected Pádua. He needed to pressure Ilídio. He needed to have a talk with Alice. He needed to have a talk with Salete. He needed to see the doctor. He needed to check his feces in the toilet bowl.

Almeidinha opened the door.

“Mr. Mattos, so nice to see you. Dona Laura is waiting for you.” Ingratiating, pandering: “You really must come here more often. . . Dona Laura was very taken with you . . .”

Laura was sitting on a sofa in the semidarkness of her red living room.

“You may go, Almeidinha.”

The two remained silent for a moment.

“Sit down, Inspector.”

Mattos sat in an armchair.

“Sit over here by me,” said Laura, patting the sofa.

“I’m fine here.”

“But I’m not fine with you there. I don’t want to put on my pince-nez to see you, understand? I’m very nearsighted.”

Mattos didn’t move.

“Please, I don’t bite.”

“Put on the pince-nez.”

Laura got the pince-nez from a small table beside the sofa. She placed the silk cord around her neck and brought the pince-nez in front of her eyes, without supporting it on her nose.

“Have you stopped hitting your head against the wall?”

“For the time being. I’d like to get some information from you.”

“About Senator Freitas?”

“Exactly.”

“What do you want to know?”

“What kind of person the senator . . . uh—”

“Young men. Business employees, students—any clean, good-looking young man.”

“Does he like black men?”

“The senator?! He’s a racist. He hates blacks. He once fought with a friend, because the guy has a black boxing instructor.”

“Can you tell me the name of that friend?”

“One Pedro Lomagno.”

“Can you tell me what you know about this Lomagno?”

“He was here just once. He only had a few whiskeys with Freitas and left. They were going to meet another senator, who never showed up. I heard a bit of their argument. Freitas said Brazil was a backward country because of Negroes and the Catholic church. A cursed black heritage: the Jesuits’ robes and the skin of slaves. He may even be a little bit right.” Laura patted her red hair. “Of course, blacks aren’t to blame for being black, the poor things.”

Rosalvo, sadly, was right, Mattos had to admit. You can find out a lot of things in high-class bordellos.

“This . . . boxing instructor. Do you know him? Do you know anything about him?”

“I don’t have the faintest idea who he is. Let’s change the subject, Inspector . . . Let’s forget this unpleasant police work . . . I have a suggestion . . .”

“I don’t have anything else to discuss with you.”

“But you don’t even know what my suggestion is.”

Mattos stood up. “I don’t want to know.”

“No man treats me like this, did you know that?”

“Like what?”

“With such disdain. You don’t like those who serve as intermediaries in amorous encounters, is that it?”

“It’s a crime. It’s called procuring. I didn’t make the law.”

“So you disdain me, because I’m a criminal?”

“I don’t disdain anyone.” He thought about Salete. He thought about Mr. Adelino. About Alice. Luciana. Lomagno. Ilídio. Old Turk. About the prostitutes in his childhood on Conde Lage. A whirlwind in his head.

“What does someone have to do to deserve a bit of, I don’t say affection, but a bit of your compassion?” asked Laura.

“Look, I already have two women, and I don’t know what to do with them. My hands and my heart are full.”

“Whoever has two can have three,” said Laura, seriously. “I like you. It doesn’t bother me that you’re a policeman, it doesn’t bother me that you have an ulcer in your stomach, it doesn’t bother me that you bang your head against the wall. It doesn’t bother me that you have as many women as you want.”

Mattos sat back down.

“Can you get me a glass of milk?”

“What?”

“My stomach is hurting.”

Laura stood up. She was wearing a long, tight satin dress.

Rua Conde Lage.

“I’ll get your milk.”

As she passed close to him, Mattos smelled the perfume emanating from Laura’s body. Rua Conde Lage.

IT WAS STILL DARK
, at five a.m., when the troops employed in the hunt for Climerio began their execution of the plan laid out by their commanders. The dogs, after sniffing again Climerio’s clothing found in the home of his friend, became restless and were the first to move, restrained by the soldiers of the patrol.

As soon as the day brightened, the helicopters took flight.

At the top of the mountain, the sounds of the small creatures of the forest, who during the night had terrified Climerio and not let him sleep, began to be replaced by the distant barking of dogs. Soon afterward, a louder sound filled Climerio with fear. He lay curled up on the ground, and saw, through the crowns of the trees, a helicopter circling slowly. The ’copter was so near that Climerio could read the letters on its cabin:
FAB
.

The barking of the dogs increased.

Climerio was trembling from cold. His hand was so chilled that he had difficulty taking the revolver from his belt. He rested the barrel against his head. He didn’t have the courage to pull the trigger; they’re not going to kill me, he thought, they need me alive.

When he saw the first dogs and the men from the patrol, Climerio came out from behind the trees with his hands raised.

Three shots rang out. The agreed-upon signal that the hunt was over. It was eight a.m.

At eleven, Climerio was disembarking in handcuffs from a helicopter at the military base at Galeão, to the sound of cheers and jubilation. His wife, Elvira de Almeida, had been arrested that morning.