Rubem Fonseca - Crimes of August

“We’re the government. Many of our fellow party members have also abused their power and taken advantage of the situation,” said Azevedo Pascoal, looking pointedly at Freitas, who everyone knew had gotten rich during Vargas’s administration. “Capanema would never accept a cynical and opportunistic posture like this.”

After saying this, Azevedo Pascoal left the meeting.

Those who stayed — sixteen deputies and four senators — continued discussing the political alternatives presented by Vitor Freitas.

After the meeting ended, Freitas sat in the solitude of his office, meditating. If the military and the UDN took power, as was certain to happen, there would follow a wave of moralism, which would be hypocritical and shortlived but in the short run would need scapegoats. But the possibility of his role in the Cemtex scheme being discovered was remote. And the suspicions of that idiot inspector also shouldn’t be taken into account. So there was no need for action, of any sort whatever, in relation to that policeman. Clemente didn’t share his thinking, but his adviser liked to display his usefulness, to become indispensable, to create complications. He needed to clip Clemente’s wings — more than that, get him out of his life.

Freitas phoned Clemente and asked him to come to his office.

“Clemente, look up Teodoro and tell him I’m no longer interested in what that inspector — what’s his name again?”

“Mattos.”

“What Inspector Mattos is investigating concerning me. I don’t want to know what he’s doing or not doing. To tell the truth, I don’t even want to hear the name of that individual. Say that to Teodoro.”

“Teodoro is already on the field, doing that job.”

Freitas laughed, without great conviction. “Then get him off the field. End the game.”

Clemente left Freitas’s room, pensive. It didn’t take long for him to form his plan. He telephoned Teodoro.

“What’s up, Teodoro? The senator wants news. You’re very slow.”

“I’m moving, sir, I’m moving. You can tell the senator that.”

FOR A DAY AND A NIGHT, Salete thought about nothing but her mother. If she had found out, something she had never undertaken to do, that she had died, Salete would have been very sad and wept with pain. But the wretched woman hadn’t died. So for twenty-four hours Salete felt only hatred toward her mother for still being alive, for her mother being even uglier, older, blacker.

At the end of that period of rancor, a feeling of regret started to overcome her. This began when she saw in her closet a piece of silk that she had bought to make a dress. She had seen her mother, in a print dress of faded calico, coming out of a store in Carioca Square. Surely she had bought some remnants to make another horrible dress.

Salete thought about that as she smoothed the piece of French silk against her breast. Her mother had never had a silk dress, never had the pleasure of feeling the softness of silk on her skin, the poor woman.

An idea began taking shape in her mind. She put on the simplest skirt and blouse in her wardrobe, removed her jewels. Carrying a package with the cut of silk, she took a taxi and told the driver to take her to São Cristóvão.

“Where in São Cristóvão?”

“Favel — uh, Rua São Luiz Gonzaga.”

When they arrived at the street, Salete asked the driver if he knew where Elisa Cylleno Square was.

The driver didn’t know.

“I’ll show you.”

They drove through a series of alleyways without finding the square.

“Just where exactly do you want to go?” asked the driver.

“The Tuiuti favela.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t go into favelas, ma’am. Very dangerous. Not even the police go there.”

They drove around a bit more. Salete spotted Rua Curuzu.

“You can drop me off here,” she said.

From Rua Curuzu she remembered how to get to the favela.

She arrived at the foot of the hill. She started climbing, passing by shacks in whose doors she saw the same women from her childhood, hanging clothes on lines to dry, carrying undernourished children, some of them pregnant, urchins playing marbles in the dirt, men in undershirts drinking at an openair bar. They all looked at her, finding her presence strange.

“Who you looking for, dear?” asked an old woman with a child in her arms.

“Dona Sebastiana’s house.”

“It’s up there.”

“I know where it is.”

The door to the wooden shack, covered with zinc sheets, was closed. Salete knocked.

Her mother opened the door. She didn’t recognize her daughter.

“It’s me. . mother.”

“Salete? Salete?”

They stood there silent for several seconds, her mother wiping her hands on her dirty skirt, shifting her feet in clogs.

“I brought you a gift.”

“Don’t you want to come in. .?”

Salete entered. She remembered those odors impregnating the house: body smells, mold, rancid food, the stench of poverty. The few pieces of furniture, old and broken, appeared to be the same ones from her time.

“What about my brothers?”

“Joãozinho is in prison. He fell in with some bad company. Tião disappeared one day and never came back. Like you.”

“I came back, mommy. Open your gift.”

Sebastiana opened the package.

“What am I going to do with something like this?”

“Make a dress.”

“A dress? Me, walking around in a silk dress here in the favela?”

“You’re going to leave the favela,” said Salete impulsively. “I’ve come to take you to live with me.”

Sebastiana covered her face with her hands and began to cry.

Salete approached her mother. Affectionately, she caressed that swollen body racked by sobs.

“Forgive me, mommy.”

They both cried, hugging. Along with the pain and repentance she felt, Salete also thought her mother needed a bath.

“I’D LIKE to talk to you.”

“Yes.”

“May I come by your place?”

“Alice, forgive me for the way I—”

“May I come by your place?”

“My shift ends at noon.”

As soon as he hung up the phone, Mattos received another call.

“Why don’t you come by here?” the inspector asked, after the other party had spoken.

“Think I’m crazy? I can’t be seen with you.”

“Why don’t you tell me by phone?”

“Don’t you want to see the letter?”

“Where, then?”

“At your apartment, right away.”

“I’m receiving a visitor today. Can it be tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow my wife has to hand the letter over to Bolão.”

“All right. At my place. Write down the address. Is seven o’clock okay?”

When they entered the apartment on Avenida Atlântica, Salete’s mother asked, “The apartment yours, Sassá?”

Sassá was Salete’s nickname when she was a child.

“I live with a man. He gave it to me. We’re getting married. We’re just waiting for his separation to come through, it’s very complicated.”

“Is he very old?”

“No, he’s still young. Look, here’s the bathroom. It’s got everything, soap, talcum powder, towels. Take a bath while I get some clothes for you.”

Salete opened her closets and after much searching found a large dressing gown that was out of fashion but which she hadn’t thrown out. She never got rid of her disused clothes, and because of that her closets were packed with clothing.

The gown was a bit tight on her mother, but it would do. Sebastiana looked like a different person.

“We’re going to the city to buy you some clothes.”

Salete knew that at Casa Santa Branca, on Rua Ouvidor, they were having a big sale of batistes, woolens, organdies, cashmere, silks, alpacas, cottons. They would buy some cloth and then go to a seamstress.