Rubem Fonseca: Crimes of August

“If you give me the name of the regiment that’s going to resist, I, with due authorization from the president, will issue the command,” said Zenóbio.

“So be it,” said Caiado.

“General Zenóbio,” shouted Deputy Danton Coelho from the back of the room, “it’s your fault if the army is divided.”

“I reject your false and rude assertion. I will not permit anyone to address me like that,” Zenóbio responded.

“General,” Alzira said, “I was surprised and disappointed when you suggested that the president resign. I ask you: why can’t we resist? I think the only thing missing is the will to fight.”

“Resistance will lead to bloodshed. We will be defeated,” said Zenóbio.

“Then let us be defeated, but fighting,” said Alzira.

There were two alternatives on the table: armed resistance or resignation. Amaral Peixoto added a third: a furlough. The president would take a leave of absence until the PMI investigating the Tonelero crime was concluded.

Several of those present, both the cabinet members and those who had intruded into the meeting, began to talk at once. Lourival Fontes, head of the Civilian Cabinet, seated beside Mascarenhas, turned to him and said, “This is becoming a circus.”

In the middle of the tumult, Vargas looked at the J.B. Deletrezz grandfather’s clock standing between the gray-and-scarlet curtains of the large doors opening onto the garden, totally dark. The hands on the white porcelain dial showed 4:15 a.m. Vargas felt spent. From the beginning he had not expected solid support for a fight; he knew human nature. He had participated, in his political career, in intrigues, revolts, conspiracies, coups, revolutions. Thus the cautious faces of the majority of the cabinet members, and their evasive words, cloaked in abdicative metaphors — José Américo had suggested a “grand gesture” on his part, almost an echo of the “elegant gesture of the vanquished” proposed by José Bonifácio of the UDN — had not come as a surprise but merely added to his weariness.

With one final effort he spoke, silencing the voices, bringing an end to the uproar. “If the military members of the cabinet guarantee that the institutions will be maintained, I will take a leave of absence.”

After saying this, accompanied by his daughter, Vargas withdrew from the room, to applause. On the third floor, before entering the bedroom where he slept alone — his wife, Dona Darcy, slept in another room in the palace — his daughter embraced and kissed him.

Tancredo Neves, the secretary of justice, was charged with drafting the note expressing the presidential decision to take a leave of absence and hand over the reins of government to his lawful replacement. Seeking to preserve the president’s dignity, it would state that this was a spontaneous decision that had received the full support of his cabinet. Tancredo would further say that the president had demanded that order and respect for the Constitution be maintained and the commitments solemnly assumed before the nation by the generals of the armed forces be honored. The note would end by saying that if such were not the case, the president would persevere in his unshakable objective to defend his constitutional prerogatives by the sacrifice of his very life. Tancredo, Oswaldo Aranha, Mascarenhas, and the other friends of the president believed that this compromise solution, in the declaration to be promulgated immediately, would avoid resignation, civil war, the humiliation of the president.

CAFÉ FILHO received the first compliments as new president of the Republic while still in pajamas, at 4:30 that morning in his residence. Radio stations, defying police censorship, had just broadcast that president Vargas had resigned. The president of the Lantern Club, the journalist Amaral Neto, was the first to congratulate Café Filho. Surrounded by opposition leaders, Café Filho declared that he planned to calm spirits and preside over a government of national unity. “My personal guard will be my wife,” he affirmed.

When, at 5:20, the chief of police stated on the radio that it was not actually a case of a resignation and that President Vargas had merely left the position temporarily, the enthusiasm of those present at Café Filho’s home was replaced by an atmosphere of tense expectation.

At seven a.m., Café Filho isolated himself from the others in his home to confer with Afonso Arinos and Bilac Pinto, who had just arrived.

ALONE IN HIS BEDROOM, Vargas slowly removed his clothes and put on the striped pajamas lying on the pillow.

Fresh in Vargas’s memory was the humiliated face of his daughter when they left the meeting, arm in arm. Alzira had gone with him to his bedroom to tell him that the cowards had left; those loyal to him were ready to do battle.

He had refused to fight. He had asked his daughter to let him go to sleep. Would Alzira one day forgive him for the cowardice of that moment?

He finished putting on the pajamas. He deliberately avoided looking at his image reflected in the two large mirrors on the room’s antique armoires. The picture of Christ in one corner, a Sacred Heart by the painter Décio Villares, brought back the fleeting memory of a conversation he had had about the painting with Cardinal Pacelli when he spent two days in the palace, in 1934, a few years before he became Pope Pius XII.

He turned out the light and lay down.

Morning was slow to arrive. Benjamim came to his room to tell him he had been summoned to testify at Galeão and that Zenóbio had met with the other generals at the War Department to affirm that in reality the president had not taken a leave of absence but had been deposed. This, too, he had expected.

He remembered once again the suffering he had seen on his daughter’s face, thought about his own refusal to fight. Thought about death. He began to cry. Benjamim, who had never seen him weep, not even when they were children, was moved. His hand on his brother’s shoulder, he asked him not to give his enemies that satisfaction. “You’ve gotten out of worse situations.” Benjamim withdrew, and Getúlio lay back down. He thought about Capanema’s speech in the Chamber defending him against the unjust attacks directed at him. He remembered what he had told his parliamentary leader: he, Getúlio Vargas, president of the Republic, could not abandon his post, could not leave, whether from fear, vanity, or self-interest. He had to stay, in face of the exigencies of the political majority that supported him. But he had, further, a duty to his name. The name of the president was a sacred name. The president was like a king, like a prince. He governed in the name of the monarch of the world, as Bossuet said. And that monarch of the world established that the name of the president had something of the sacred to it. Whoever exercised the presidency of the Republic had the duty, and not merely the right, to defend his name, because that name was not only that of Getúlio Vargas, it was the name of the president of the Republic. The president of the Republic had to honor the dignity inherent in his function, in his office, in his power. He had the duty to defend his name and, in defense of his name, could not resign, because resignation would be to confirm the suspicions.

VERY EARLY, Inspector Mattos went to the Dr. Eiras Clinic to find out about Alice.

“She can’t have visitors,” said an employee at the reception area.

“But is she all right?”

“Dona Alice is sleeping. Dr. Arnoldo was here today, and she was medicated. Maybe she’ll be able to have visitors soon.”

“Is Dr. Arnoldo in the clinic?”

“No, he left. He must be seeing other patients.”

LYING IN BED, his eyes open but not seeing, Vargas imagined how his death would be received by his enemies. His letter, which had been written as a farewell to government and not to life, a rough draft done days before at the request of Maciel Filho, his friend and assistant since the 1930s, could also serve, even better, as a definitive goodbye. The letter, poorly typed, was on the marble top of the bedroom’s small chest of drawers, beside the bathroom door.