Rubem Fonseca - Crimes of August

He aimed the beam from the flashlight in his teeth at Raimundo’s bony face. With a face like that, the guy was never going anywhere in life. Where was the best place to start? He turned the body face down on the ground and with the hatchet began to strike the part of the neck directly below the hair.

Chicão had never beheaded anyone and didn’t expect so much work for something so simple.

The bastard, besides puncturing a tire and running down the battery, had a neck like ironwood. The rage he felt toward the dead man amplified the violence of the blows. An especially fierce stroke, at the same time it severed the head, made it turn around, and Chicão saw for the last time, illuminated by the flashlight beam, Raimundo’s dirty face, separated from his trunk.

“No-good fucker,” Chicão tried to say, but his tongue, pinned by the flashlight in his mouth, emitted an unintelligible sound that seemed the growl of a dog.

He removed the bag he had used as a bib to avoid covering himself in blood. He grabbed Raimundo’s head, stuck it into the bag. He took the corpse by the legs and, dragging it to the riverbank, pushed it into the water. The corpse floated for a few seconds and then sank. But Chicão knew that, with the gases forming in the intestines, the body would return to the surface somewhere.

He took the barbells and the rope from the trunk. He put the barbells in the canvas bag, along with the severed head.

The beam from the flashlight was beginning to weaken. He strung the rope through the eyelets, closing it with a tight knot.

Not even the devil’s going to untie that knot, he thought, swinging the bag over his head and hurling it into the river.

Simultaneous with the sound of the bag hitting the water, the flashlight went out for good. He removed it from his mouth and tossed it into the river.

On the return he thought about spreading the fingers along the streets, at intervals of five kilometers, but he remembered the story of Hansel and Gretel throwing bread crumbs in their path and, without knowing exactly why, decided to keep Raimundo’s fingers in his pocket.

After Queimados he took the Rio-São Paulo highway. He no longer feared running into the highway patrol. The day was beginning to dawn. He liked seeing the sunrise. In Italy he had seen beautiful dawns, but none as lovely as those of his country, none as beautiful as that day.

CHICÃO STOPPED at an automotive repair shop on the highway and told a mechanic to fix the car. He arrived in Rio after eleven a.m. He got stuck in traffic downtown, in front of Candelária church.

A crowd was surrounding the church.

“What’s going on, officer?” Chicão asked a policeman who was trying to organize traffic.

“The seventh-day Mass for the soul of Major Rubens Vaz,” the cop said.

The Mass was being celebrated by the Bishops Hélder Câmara, Jorge Marcos de Oliveira, and José Távora. From the number of official cars, Chicão concluded that the church must be packed with high authorities.

The Mass ended. The crowd around the church increased.

A taxi, with an enormous loudspeaker on its hood, positioned itself in front of the crowd, on Avenida Rio Branco. A voice from inside the vehicle blared: “As happens with all Brazilians, my heart is filled with sadness and revolt. Brazilians, democracy is impossible in our country as long as that aged dictator occupies the presidency. Getúlio’s hands are stained with blood. Only a revolution can bring back decency, dignity, and honor to Brazil. Only a revolution can end this sea of mud. For alderman, vote for Wilson Leite Passos. For federal deputy, Carlos Lacerda!” In the car, giving the speech, was the alderman candidate himself.

Chicão, in his car, surrounded by a crowd that swelled by the minute, followed the taxi with the loudspeaker, which moved ahead slowly. The shouts from the crowd drowned out the discourse coming from inside the taxi.

At Marechal Floriano Square, in front of a building housing a campaign office of the UDN, the crowd stopped, yelling even louder.

Suddenly, the clamor from the crowd ceased. Its attention, now silent, had turned to the window of the second floor, the site of Wilson Leite Passos’s campaign headquarters. At the window was a man they all knew.

“Lacerda!” someone screamed, a bellow that seemed to pierce the square from end to end.

The crowd immediately began shouting the name of Lacerda, who gestured with both hands for silence.

“I ask all of you to go home,” Lacerda shouted through a loudspeaker. “Disorder in the streets helps only the murderous oligarchs who are in power.”

The shouts from the crowd drowned out his words. The national anthem was played through the loudspeakers, replacing Lacerda’s inaudible words, but the crowd’s wrath did not subside. In a rage, it surrounded a PTB propaganda car, yanking from the wheel a man who said he was Aires de Castro, president of the Metalworkers Union. In a few moments, the car was set on fire.

The popping sound of teargas grenades was heard. The square was quickly invaded by shock troops from the special forces, who stood out in their red berets; they began dispersing the crowd with blows from their batons. A tank, from the Military Police barracks on Evaristo da Veiga, entered the square, hitting the demonstrators with powerful jets of water. People running, protecting their eyes from the teargas bombs, fell and were trampled; the police violently dispersed anyone within reach. Cries of terror were heard. Demonstrators were dragged to patrol wagons parked on Rua Treze de Março. When the police action ceased, the now empty square held the wounded, lying on the ground or being helped by frightened individuals. All that could be heard were moans and brusque orders from the police.

Chicão watched it all from his car parked on Avenida Rio Branco, undisturbed. He’d seen worse things in the war. What was happening neither interested nor moved him. All politicians were corrupt, and those who weren’t thieves, if such existed, were liars. And the imbeciles who went into the streets to cheer on politicians deserved just what they were getting, whacks on the head.

He amused himself during the scrambling of demonstrators and policemen by throwing Raimundo’s severed fingers out the window; pieces of finger were supported on Chicão’s index finger, then propelled by his thumb as if he were shooting marbles.

After taking a shower at Zuleika’s, Chicão called Lomagno’s office, as they had agreed.

“All done, sir. I followed the plan.”

“Where are you?”

“At a friend’s place.”

“Where?”

“Almirante Tamandaré.”

“Leave. Get out of the South Zone. When I can, I’ll look for you at the gym.”

PRESIDENT VARGAS, accompanied by Deputy Danton Coelho, left Rio at 8:45 a.m., on a Brazilian Air Force plane, headed to Belo Horizonte to inaugurate the new Mannesmann steel mill.

“Everything’s calm,” declared Secretary Tancredo Neves to the press, at the airport.

After the inauguration of the mill, at a luncheon at the Palace of Liberty with Juscelino Kubitschek, governor of Minas Gerais, Vargas stated that he would not permit the agents of mendacity to lead the country into chaos. While he was installing factories for the economic emancipation of Brazil, his adversaries were trying to install disorder in the streets to enslave the people to their hidden interests. He wasn’t thinking, had never thought, of resigning. He was the legally elected president and planned to serve out his term to the end and not a minute longer.

A slip of the tongue from someone who had always been accused of not wanting to relinquish power. Vargas should have said, under the circumstances, that he intended to serve out his term to the end and not a minute less.