Elizabeth Bishop - Prose

Rio de Janeiro,

My joy and my delight!

By day I have no water,

By night I have no light.

One of this year’s sambas gives the honest reaction of the masses to last spring’s “revolution”:

Kick him out of office!

He’s a greedy boy!

I’ve nothing to investigate,

What I want is joy!

Justice has arrived!

“Pull” won’t work again!

Some have fled to Uruguay;

Some have fled to Spain!

And here is this year’s version of the annual complaint about the Central Railroad, the line that carries thousands from the huge working-class suburbs north of the city in to work. It is addressed to President Castelo Branco:

Marshál, Illustrious Marshál,

Consider the problem

Of the suburbs on the Centrál!

I’m sorry for poor Juvenal,

Hanging in the old Central

All year long …

He works in Leblon

And lives in Delight,*

And gets to work mornings

Late at night.

Marshál!

Because of its difficult, if lively, topography, the traffic problems of Rio are even more of a nightmare than those of other big cities. Governor Lacerda appointed a tough air force man, Colonel Fontenelle, to see if he could solve them. First, to everyone’s confusion and rage, he changed the direction of almost all the one-way streets: then he attacked double, triple and, some swear, quadruple parking. His system is simple: The police go around letting the air out of the tires of illegally parked cars.

It must be said that this measure, considered much too “hard” by the easy-going Cariocans, has partly succeeded. Anyway, bus travel in the city has been speeded up. This year at least three sambas refer to Colonel Fontenelle’s campaign (with appropriate noises). The odd thing is that these sambas were composed, and are mostly sung (and hissed), by those who have never owned cars in their lives and never expect to.

The words of sambas are nothing without the music, and some of the longest-lived and musically most beautiful have the most hackneyed lyrics. Love — light love and serious love — infidelity, prostitution, police raids and line-ups (the subject of a very pretty one this year), moonlight, beaches, kisses, heartbreak, and love again:

Come, my mulatta,

Take me back.

You’re the joker

In my pack,

The prune in my pudding,

Pepper in my pie,

My package of peanuts,

The moon in my sky.

How much longer the samba can hold out against commercialism, television and radio is impossible to say; there are already signs of deterioration. Especially deadly is the new practice of broadcasting sambas over loudspeakers during Carnival itself, so that the people don’t, or can’t, sing them the way they used to.

Ironically, what may prove to be the real kiss of death to the spontaneity of the samba is that the young rich, after years of devotion to North American jazz, have discovered it. A few years ago only the very few Brazilians, mostly intellectuals, who cared for their own folk-culture took the samba seriously, or went to the rehearsals of the big schools up on the morros, the hills. This year, crowds of young people went, one of the symptoms, possibly, of a new social awareness since the “revolution.” And some of this year’s crop of songs show a self-consciousness, even a self-pity, that is far removed from the old samba spirit.

* * *

Poets are also taking up popular songs, inspired perhaps by Vinicius de Moraes, who wrote the libretto of the movie “Black Orpheus.” He has lately been appearing at a nightclub, Zumzumzum (Rumor), singing his own songs. A young imitator of Yevtushenko, from the south of Brazil, declaimed his poetry to a packed house in Rio, wearing red sweater, white trousers and no socks, with his hair in his eyes. His book is called “The Betrayed Generation.” In fact, a conviction, more or less clearly defined, and more or less justifiable, of “betrayal” seems to be the attitude of both rich and poor, while for the younger rich, a slight subversiveness is considered chic. The Little Castle is a new night club out on Ipanema Beach, and its rich young clientele are often called the “Castelinho Communists”—or parlor pinks.

* * *

The most popular show for many weeks has been “Opinion,” named for the samba “Opinion,” by Zé Kéti, a Negro song writer from the favelas. The cast consists of Nara Leão, one of the first girl singers of “good family” ever to appear in Rio, who represents the repentant uppercrust; Zé Kéti himself, who represents the favelas; and a young Negro from the north, João Batista do Vale, representing the alienated worker who comes to the big city. The three meet, tell their stories, sing, wander about, sit on crates, etc., to the accompaniment of drums, a flute and a guitar. Joan Baez and Pete Seeger are popular now, and so some rather irrelevant North American spirituals and chain-gang songs are included. The death sentence of Tiradentes, “Toothpuller,” the national hero who was condemned for rebellion against Portugal in 1792, is read aloud. There are jokes like: “Red? That color’s out of style now.”

What is depressing about “Opinion” to North Americans in the audience is not its vague “message” (considered daringly left in Rio) or its amateurishness (that is rather endearing). It is the sudden, sad, uncanny feeling of déjà vu: it is all so reminiscent of college plays in the early thirties with Kentucky miners, clenched fists and awkward stances.

Other plays go on as usual. Arthur Miller’s “All My Sons” is one, and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” has been running a long time. There is Goldoni’s “Mirandolina,” and, more typically, plays like “The Moral of Adultery,” “Let’s Fall in Love in Cabo Frio” and “The Nuder the Better.” In general, the theater in Rio is far behind the other arts, and acting is in a sort of historical “pocket,” miraculously preserved from about 1910.

The question always in the air is: When are elections to be held? At first they were to be this year; now they have been postponed until 1966, and no one knows the date, or year, for sure. Carlos Lacerda is the only Presidential candidate so far. Ex-President Kubitschek is in self-imposed exile — mostly in Paris — with his political rights taken away for 10 years.

If his followers could find a way of getting around that, he would probably be only too glad to run again. Although his enemies blame the worst of the inflation on Kubitschek’s industrial-progress-at-any-cost policy, and his building of Brasília, and believe his Government to have been hopelessly graft ridden, nevertheless they agree he did get things done. And his many partisans, particularly those who grew rich during his term, are eager to get him back.

Pro-Kubitschek propaganda has reached a height of absurdity. Poor, poor Kubitschek, it goes, he lives in a small apartment in Paris, he drives his own car, and — worst deprivation of all to the family-minded Brazilians — he hasn’t seen his latest grandchild yet. His enemies have given this movement the very Cariocan name of “Operation Coitadinho, ” a splendid example of the diminutive of coitado, “poor little one,” one of the most frequent exclamations on the lips of the soft-hearted, but ironical, Brazilians.

Many people were disappointed when President Castelo Branco announced that he would not run for a full term. They had hoped he would, or at least felt it was too early for him to make such a decision. He has almost no demagogic appeal for the masses, and he has not attempted to cultivate it. He is a sad man, still mourning his wife, who died the year before he became President, and he works hard at the almost impossible job he was reluctant to accept.