The Mystery of Rio (19 page)

However, according to the forensic report, the cause of death was “total cessation of life”—an expression that, although pleonastic, meant that the death had not been an accident or suicide, much less a murder—in other words, it was a natural death.

The death, however, still bewildered examiners. Besides the presence of semen in her vagina (confirming recent copulation), the contractions in the facial muscles, the sphincter, the quadriceps, and the glutes indicated that she appeared to have been frozen, even mummified, at the moment of ecstasy. For this was exactly the impression one had: her face had immortalized the rictus of orgasm, and none of the mourners, perhaps out of embarrassment, dared cover this up, even going so far as leaving the deceased's eyelids open.

But there were no injuries, toxicology exams were negative, nor could the hypothesis of homicide by suffocation (with the classic use of a pillow, for example) be raised because that would not account for the expression of ecstasy.

It is important to make this clear: the lewd expression on the girl's face was incompatible with the expression of someone who had sensed, as necessarily would have been the case in a murder, the coming end.

What's more, it defied all known thanatological laws because, even more than twenty-four hours after the cessation of life, the muscles mentioned remained rigid. One of the examiners said something very striking, heartbreaking even, to the mother: that her daughter had died with pleasure.

When Baeta received the inital information concerning the case, even before the report had been filed, he declined to examine the scene, not only because it had been tampered with when they moved the body, but principally because the death happened at the famous Jereba's
muquiço
.

It is worth interrupting the narrative here to explain precisely what a
muquiço
is. Even the best dictionaries erroneously spell the word with an “o” and say it is a synonym for a hovel. Indeed, the meaning has very little to do with the appearance of the dwelling that makes up the
muquiço
. Rather, it is what the house is used for that defines it as such.

The
muquiço
is a denial of the very idea of a house: it is a house with open doors, a home where everyone can enter. If houses, or residences, are defined as intimate spaces, the
muquiço
achieves the supreme contradiction of public intimacy. It is also important not to confuse it with a tenement or a rooming house. In the
muquiço
, no space is private, however minimal.

Incidentally, for historical reasons,
muquiços
were, and still are, poor. Although they must have first appeared on flat paved streets, it was in the hillsides of Rio de Janeiro that the institution really developed. And no case is more emblematic than Jereba's
muquiço
.

Jereba had initially rented the house on the Nheco slope hoping to make it his home and simultaneously the seat of the carnival association of his dreams, for which he had even found a name: Rancho das Morenas. It was a spacious, though rustic, house. However, as fate would have it, Jereba struggled to pay the rent.

It was neighbors, friends, and drinking companions who helped him not to lose the house. There was no implicit intention behind this help. However, the generosity was so spontaneous that, little by little, Jereba began opening the doors to his home until finally it became a
muquiço
, with its doors permanently open.

At night—whether or not Jereba was at home—the
muquiço
was frequented by couples who went there to engage in illicit affairs. There was no swapping, there were no orgies. In this, and in many other ways, it differed from Madame Brigitte and Dr. Zmuda's commercial establishment.

The couples at the
muquiço
merely took advantage of its impenetrable darkness (Jereba had no artificial light) in order to give cover to their activities. On more than one occasion, husband and wife were present at the same time, with their respective lovers, without knowing it, committing the same crime and sharing the same space.

Baeta—who had been familiar with the
muquiço
since he was thirteen—knew that once the body had been moved from its original position it was useless to collect fingerprints or other evidence. First, because it would turn hundreds of people into suspects, and second, because not even the occasional witnesses, even those who dared confess to having been at the
muquiço
, could identify the dead girl's companion. The coroner's report put an end to the whole story, certifying death due to natural causes.

In the First District, this outcome was met with animosity. Ever since Rufino's release by order of the chief of police, there was strong resistance to the Relação Street people—and it is worth remembering that the events narrated now occurred before Baeta and the captain's conversation at Hans Staden, which transformed antipathy into outright war. Therefore, Mauá Square made a point of challenging all expert opinions issued by headquarters.

For this reason, their officers continuously pitted the mother against Relação Street, and they made the rounds, asking questions, wanting to know who had seen the girl and whom she had been with before entering the
muquiço
.

On the point of the dead girl's partner, nobody said a thing, though they may have actually known his identity. The less shy, those daring enough to confess they had been at the
muquiço
, insisted on one thing: that the deceased had groaned abnormally throughout the whole act, ending with a scream so piercing, never before heard in that tone and at that intensity, that everybody shut up and stopped to admire it.

What followed was total, absolute silence. And after that, a man's voice, who seemed to be whispering something, as if trying to awaken someone—a man who then (noises indicated) stood and walked away. It was Jereba who found the girl, after everyone had left.

It was the cry, that cry, which led everyone to claim—even though the body did not show any signs of aggression—that it had been murder.

 

The reader surely will remember that on September 11th, at the House of Swaps, Baeta recognized that the widow Palhares' new lover was Aniceto, and that Baeta was quite upset not only with the capoeira's success with the audience, but particularly with the look Guiomar gave him, eyeing his rival as he left, arm in arm with the widow.

The crisis actually began two weeks earlier, when for the first time, Guiomar expressed that desire, that inclination, to be hit that her husband grudgingly complied with.

A fascinating woman, Guiomar. Not just because she was pretty, and had those shapely ankles, but because she was highly sexual, very excitable, a level of lust verging on debauchery. At the same time—and perhaps precisely for that reason—she was faithful, even in her innermost thoughts, and I have described how the Baetas' fantasy operated at the House of Swaps.

Guiomar did not work outside the house, but she had girlfriends and neighbors who visited her often, and helped ease the boredom and unpredictability of the life of a policeman's wife.

Women talk a lot about sex when they are alone among themselves, and Guiomar and her girlfriends were no different. Such conversations, of course, can get quite lively, and when certain taboos are confessed they can really go all out—as if it the mere act of narrating were a compensation for the unfulfilled desire.

One of the neighbors, for example, on one of those afternoons they spent together after August 21st, told how she yearned to give herself to a famous, rich, tall, blond man who could speak French, a language that she did not speak. As far as he was concerned, she would be just another stranger, but she would wear the sexiest lace lingerie, like the cabaret dancers.

And he would speak his incomprehensible French, dressed in the most luxurious tailcoat of the day, and he would have his way with her, without undressing her, exposing only the necessary organ. And she would stroke the tailcoat, relish the majestic texture of the expensive cloth, and feel the varnish from his shoes on the bare soles of her feet. And they would come to ecstasy without sweating a single drop, without dissipating the aroma of imported essences.

And a second neighbor would weave even more absurd plots: she wanted to be surprised by her husband as she masturbated, or while she slept, uttering the names of others. And her husband would get furious and be rough with her the next day, never commenting on the incident.

Guiomar was always the quietest. She only said things that could not be considered extravagant, even though she was the only one who ever really ever did anything sordid. That day she went a little farther:

“What I really like are strong men.”

And Baeta was strong. Her confession (which revealed little, as always) did not raise eyebrows. No one found it unusual that Guiomar yearned for a little rough play. Besides, it was with her husband, the neighbors thought, since he was the only man in the few fantasies she shared with them. What was new about her statement, though, was the subtle use of the plural, which went unnoticed.

A few days later, on account of these same conversations, a girlfriend—who crackled with passion—asked for Guiomar's company to pay a forbidden visit to an old palm reader on Marrecas Street. Not even I, the author, can explain exactly why Guiomar, after her friend had finished, decided to have her own palm read.

They say soothsayers in general—palm readers, fortune-tellers, necromancers, augurers, astrologers, kabbalists,
babalaôs
, seers, prophets,
caraíbas
, pythonesses, presagers—have a talent for predicting the future. No one today disputes the validity of the concept of destiny, or that a lifeline really does exist, dating from time immemorial, for each individual.

However, in Rio de Janeiro (and this remains one of the city's mysteries), soothsayers do not predict the future. Fortune-tellers never predict, never anticipate coming events. They do something even greater: they change destinies. They alter the course of the lives of the people who consult them. It is closer to gambling than prophecy. You need to be willing to take risks to play; to be willing to change the course of your existence, without knowing what that change will be.

With her palm open, Guiomar listened to the woman who stared at it with almost blind eyes, but who nonetheless could identify very distinctive traits in one of the grooves:

“Over the lifeline, there's a cross; next to it, five lines: two up, three down. You're about to cheat on your husband.”

This was an outrage. Guiomar left the cubicle regretting even having come, having succumbed to her curiosity. In disbelief, she dropped ten
mil-reis
in the wicker basket awaiting her on the sideboard as she exited.

September 11th would come, and Guiomar—who had since forgotten the omen—stared for a few seconds too long at Aniceto (without knowing who he was as he walked by haughtily, arm in arm with another woman). It was perhaps the third symptom, or effect, of the words of the Marrecas Street palm reader.

Everything became clear the following Saturday, when they were at home in Catete. Guiomar had just bathed, and lay facedown, almost naked, ready for the taking. Baeta approached, more or less as he always did, with that air of a man ready to take what is his. And then she evaded him slightly and, pointing to her own body, as if selling a piece of merchandise, asked:

“How much would you pay for all this?”

Baeta was not playing along. She insisted:

“How much would you pay, if I were a whore?”

Baeta—a good lover, an experienced man—would have played along if it had been any other woman. But it was inescapably Guiomar. At that moment, he felt as if he had just lost something. And he had a feeling (do not ask me to give his reasons) that this unprecedented behavior had to do with September 11th.

He was high-handed with his wife, and he did not satisfy her, which for a man is a serious offense. Nonetheless, when she got ready to go to the next party at the House of Swaps (the following Thursday, the 18th), her tears had already dried, and she was actually thrilled at the prospect. The expert, though, was even more ill-mannered by then, saying flatly that they would stay home. In the early morning hours, it was Guiomar who tried to reconcile:

“Hit me! Go ahead!”

Hitting a woman is an art. This time Baeta actually tried. It was not the strength, though, that was missing—it was the attitude.

The next day after work, Baeta—who truly loved Guiomar—searched through items stored in a reinforced locker marked “Confidential,” to which only he had the key. Not all of the objects collected at the House of Swaps were significant and indispensable to identifying the murderer. So, in a brash move, in order to appease his wife's lust, he took the silver-handled whip back with him to his home in Catete.

 

Another fantastic story that influenced Baeta's reunion with his primitive world happened in the Formiga neighborhood. The case became infamous in the northern part of town, and if this were a separate short story, it would be called
The
Timbau Hill Crossroads
.

There is no Timbau Hill anymore in Formiga. At the time, that hill was an eerie place. It ended in the outer confines of the neighborhood, at a dead-end crossroads, deserted, dark, abandoned, haunted by the memory of sad people who went there to die. Since it was a crossroads, it was also a place where offerings were left.

The story involves two main characters: Tião Saci—a troublemaker,
quizumbeiro
, a matchmaker, and an inhabitant of Quersoene—and Lacraia—a
jongueiro
, drummer,
macumbeiro
, born and raised in the hills of Madureira, who moved to Formiga for a woman, Deodata, who offered him lodging in her home.

Calling him Tião Saci, deep down, was mean-spirited: the mythical trickster Saci Pere had only one leg; Tião had both legs, though he was lame and dragged his left foot. He was not loved, and he was not a person held in high esteem. But he was not a bad person. It was during his wanderings in the hills that he came upon Deodata's house.