The market maker (9 page)

Isabel glanced toward Cordelia's stomach and asked her something in Portuguese. Cordelia's smile widened, and Isabel gave a cry and flung her arms round her sister's neck. They chatted excitedly for a couple of minutes, and then turned to me, both beaming.

"I'm sorry about that, Nick," said Isabel.

"That's OK. I think I got the general idea," I said, smiling myself. It was impossible not to be infected with their excitement. I nodded to Cordelia. "Congratulations."

"Thank you," she said. "So, has Isabel told you what we do here?" Her English was slow and precise, her accent much more pronounced than her sister's.

"Not really. Something about rurming a shelter for street children?"

"That's right. It's a place for them to come to get a proper meal, to talk to someone, to feel that they belong somewhere."

"Do they stay the night?"

"We only have room for a few. Those children who are genuinely afraid for their lives."

"Who are they afraid of?"

"The police, mostly. Or the death squads. Groups of men who promise the shopkeepers they will keep the

children off the streets. They beat them up or kill them." Cordelia said this without emotion.

"Why? What have they done?"

"All kinds of things. Stealing mostly. Although it doesn't even have to be that. A nine-year-old boy called Patricio used to come here. Last month he was killed, strangled. His body was found on the beach with a note: 'I killed you because you didn't go to school and had no future.'"

I recoiled. I looked closely at Cordelia's face. I could hardly believe what she was saying. In a way I didn't want to believe her. I looked for signs of exaggeration. But her face was blank. She was stating fact.

"How do they get away with it? Don't the police do anything?"

"It's the police who do most of the killing. Either in imiform or out of it."

"But what about ordinary people? How do they put up with it?"

"They ignore it. They pretend it doesn't happen. Some praise the police for clearing up the streets."

I grimaced. "I can't believe it."

She shrugged. "Do you want to see some of the children?"

She led us into the building. It was dark, cool, and clean, after the chaotic dust and heat of the favela. We walked along the long corridor, dodging children of all shapes and sizes. Paintings in bright unsteady colors covered the walls. We entered a kind of classroom where a number of children were playing, talking, or just sitting silentiy, staring.

"Don't these children have parents?" I asked.

"Many don't know their fathers. They m.ight have a dozen brothers and sisters who all live together in one of those shacks down there, in one dark room. Many

are beaten and abused by stepfathers. Often the mothers spend their days in a drunken stupor. For these kids life on the street is better. They go down into the city during the day to work or beg or steal, and in the evening they stay down there if they can, or come up here."

We came to another room where a group of boys were talking to a teacher. I wasn't sure if it was a lesson or just a conversation. One kid, about twelve, saw me.

"Hey, meester," he said. "You got a dollar?"

I looked quickly at Cordelia, who gave a tiny shake of her head. "No, sorry," I said.

" What your name? "

The boy had a big smile, but his eyes were hard. They rested on me for a couple of seconds, and then darted about the room, as if he was expecting danger to appear at any moment from a window or a comer. Sores ran up the side of his left leg. His chin was lifted aggressively toward me.

"Nick," I replied. "What's yours?"

"Euclides. You have a gun, meester?"

"No."

"I have a gun," and with that he burst into a cackle of laughter. The other kids joined in.

We left the room. "Was that true?" I asked Cordelia.

"We don't allow guns or knives here. Euclides is hiding here, he says the police are going to kill him. He says he stole a chicken. But now we don't think it's true. Suzane, there, thinks that he might have shot someone, for money."

"A twelve-year-old hit man?"

"That's right."

"So what are you going to do?"

"We'll keep him here. These children need to know that we will shelter them whatever they have done.

Otherwise they won't trust us. Anyway, the police will get him one day I'd like to pretend that these children are all angels, but they are not. What we are trying to do here is break a circle of brutality."

CordeUa sighed, for the first time letting some emotion show. "Do you know what Euclides wants to be when he grows up?"

I shook my head.

"A policeman."

By the time we reached the car, I was hot, sweaty, dirty, and tired. I was also profoundly dispirited.

"You know your favela deal isn't going to change that," I said. "A few roads and a lick of paint won't help

those kids."

Isabel sighed. "I know. But it's a start. And we have to start somewhere." She looked through the smoked windows of the car back up the hillside. "Deep inside the soul of this country, there is a disease. It's some kind of brutality. It's like a virus. It replicates itself through generations, from child to drug dealer to policeman to child. CordeUa deals with its symptoms. I'd like to think that something like the favela bairro project deals with its causes. But after seeing kids like EucUdes I just feel like giving up. Sometimes I wonder why I shouldn't just ignore the problem like everyone else. But we have to try. We absolutely have to try."

I recalled the tough little boy with the big smile, and tried to imagine what adulthood would hold for him. If he ever made it that far.

"Euclides is a funny name for a kid, isn't it, anyway?"

"Brazilians can be very imaginative in naming their chUdren," Isabel replied, "especially in the favelas. Cordelia looks after a skinny five-year-old called Marcos Aurelio."

I smiled briefly at this but only briefly The favela had depressed and angered me. How could something like that exist in a supposedly civilized country like Brazil? How could so many fabulously wealthy people live so close to such poverty? You couldn't really blame the Brazilians, indeed many, like Cordelia and Isabel, were doing their best. Yet I was still angry with them, and angry with myself as well, for accepting what I saw around me. But what could I do? What could anyone do? I longed for the simple answers of my more naive past.

We drove out of the favela and into a green suburb of white houses hiding behind high walls and electronically laden iron gates.

"I admire your sister." I said.

"I admire her. And I love her. But I think she's stupid. Stupid!"

I glanced over to Isabel. Her cheeks were flushed. "I know she's doing good, a lot of good. But she's going to end up dead. God, I hope she gives it up when she has the baby"

"Do you think one of the kids will kill her?"

"No, not them. She's a sitting target to be kidnapped. That's a popular sport here in Rio. And you heard all that stuff about the police and the death squads. How do you think they feel about their victims escaping? Cordelia's had death threats. They've tried to bum down the shelter."

"But she won't give up," I said. I'd seen the determination in Cordelia's eyes.

"No," said Isabel. "She says that they wouldn't dare do anything to her. Because of who our father is, and with the high media profile she has, it would be counterproductive for the death squads to do anything. It would start a public outcry against them."

"Do you think she's right?"

A tear glistened in the comer of Isabel's eye. "I pray she is. But one day some off-duty policeman is going to decide that enough is enough."

"Can't your father stop her?"

"No one can stop her. Not him, not her husband. Don't get me wrong. If she wasn't my sister, I'd think she was doing a tremendous thing. But she is my sister ..." Isabel rubbed her eye.

"I think I would be very proud of her if she were mine," I said carefully.

Isabel glanced at me for a moment and gave me a small smile.

"Um, Isabel?"

"Yes?" j

" Would you have dinner with me tonight? " i

7

Isabel met me in the hotel lobby, wearing the simple black dress she had worn when she had gone out with her friends two nights before. It suited her perfectly, complementing the smooth, graceful glide of her body as she walked.

"Let's have a drink by the beach/' I said.

'Tine. Lead the way."

Outside, the Avenida Atlantica was lined with hookers in skimpy tops and tight shorts leaning against the backs of parked cars, hoping to entice passing trade. We stopped outside one of the many little kiosks that lined the edge of the sand and ordered a couple of beers.

We sat and watched the world go by. We exchanged a few words, but it was difficult. I wasn't sure whether Isabel was shy, or being evasive, or both.

A boy of about four came up and stood beside us, offering us chewing gum. He had a delicate face and large brown, trusting eyes. "Nao obrigado," I said, and tried to shoo him off, but he took no notice. Then Isabel spoke some sharp words of Portuguese to him. Wordlessly he turned away from us and approached the next

table. The barman left his post, clapped his hands, and sent the boy on his way.

We fell silent. The child was Oliver's age. I wondered if he would turn into another Euclides, a twelve-year-old hit man with attitude.

Just then a woman with a puffy face and dyed blond hair, who had been drinking a caipirinha sloppily at the table next to us, staggered to her feet. She lurched a few yards and threw up on the sand.

"Let's go," said Isabel. "1 knew there was a reason I preferred Ipanema to Copacabana."

We ended up at a fish restaurant just back from Ipanema beach. It was crowded and lively with a menu I couldn't understand.

"I liked your father," I said. "He's a nice guy."

"Yes, he is. He just drives me crazy sometimes."

"Did you always want to be a banker like him?" I asked, pouring her a glass of wine.

She glanced up at me. Her large liquid eyes considered me, weighing how much to tell me.

Then she gave me that quick smile, and replied, "No. I hated banking when I was in school. I thought the last thing I would ever do would be to become a banker. I was sickened by what I saw around me. Poverty surrounded by wealth. So I wanted to do sometliing about it. Attack the root causes, not just treat the symptoms like Cordelia." She was relaxing, talking much more freely. "You know how it is when you're twenty. You think that if only the world knew what you knew, then it would be a better place. So your job is just to explain to everyone how stupid they are."

"I know just what you mean," I said. "I used to be convinced that if the government ran tlie economy for the benefit of all the people, not just the rich, everyone would be better off. Then I went to the Soviet Union

for two years. It was quite difficult to stay a socialist after that. In the end I just gave it all up and read books instead."

A waiter hovered at Isabel's elbow. She ordered.

"So what on earth are you doing here now?"

I smiled. "I need the money. And I want to see if I can do it. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in the City. Just a few years, enough to earn a lot of money. And then I'll go back to reading, and teaching."

"And will you be able to do it?"

"I think so. What do you think?"

Isabel studied me for a moment. "Perhaps. But I'm not sure you'll want to."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you're intelligent, you pick things up incredibly quickly, and you do well with people. But to succeed in this business you need a killer instinct. And I'm not sure you've got it."

For some reason, this criticism stung me deeply. It was what I had half feared, and it was what I was out to prove was wrong.

"Believe me, when I want to do something, I do it," I said. I meant it as a bold statement, but it came out a bit like a whine.

The comers of Isabel's mouth twitched. Her eyes mocked me. "You're just too nice a guy for this game."

"Grrrr. Cancel the fish. Give me a raw steak."

Isabel shook her head. "You don't convince me."

"Well, what about you, then? Do you eat government officials for breakfast?"

"I surprise myself sometimes. And them."

"So how did you end up in this business? I mean, Dekker isn't exactly the World Development Fund, is it?"

"You're right. After I left university here in Rio, I studied Development Economics in the United States. At Columbia. And I guess I came to the same kind of conclusions as you. There was very little real difference that I could make."

''But why banking? I mean, wasn't that a total

sellout?''

"It had to do with my father."

"He put pressure on you to go into the family

business?"

"No. Far from it. Now if I had been a son, that would have been different. Papai always wanted a son, I'm sure, but my mother died before she could give him one."

I had wondered about Isabel's mother, but I hadn't liked to ask. "I'm sorry," I said.

Isabel shrugged. "I was only two. It would have been nice to have known her, but..." Her eyes wandered off into space for a moment. "Sorry. Anyway, I was a girl, and girls of my father's class get married before they are twenty-five to men of good family Education is OK, and perhaps a job for a couple of years, but not a career. "Now, in the States I saw women who were making careers for themselves in all sorts of different fields. They were becoming lawyers, bankers, doctors. But not me. I wasn't supposed to do any of that. And then I found out that the man I was supposed to marry, Mar-celo, was messing around with one of my friends while I was in New York!" "Oh, dear."

"Yes. Oh, dear. So I decided to make my own career in banking, in my father's business. I joined Banco Evolucao in Sao Paulo. But it's difficult to be a woman and a banker in Brazil, especially if you have a father like mine. So I went to work for Dekker three years ago.