Idra Novey - Ways to Disappear

On the news, when they reported the deaths, all they’d say was that she was Beatriz Yagoda’s daughter. They’d flash an image of her round, ordinary face for a second, maybe two, before going back to her green-eyed, high-cheekboned mother receiving the Jabuti Prize at twenty-nine on TV. And that would be it, her life over. Thiago would go home to his wife and his children and hire someone younger to replace her.

Raquel squeezed her head between her palms, unsure of what to do, wondering if she should just go back home. But to what? She’d already taken the days off work and spent four hundred reais on her ticket. It was too late to get back her deposit on the hotel. Balancing the expense against her fear, she boarded the plane. Ahead of her in line was a tall bald man with a thick keloid scar across the back of his neck. A knife scar.

Or just a scar from a fall from a horse. Or out of a car. She ran a hand over her hot face. Her mouth felt so dry it was an effort to swallow. She was going to have to find some way to stop this paranoia. All day long she dealt with union leaders shouting at her. They got right up in her face, threatening to coerce every miner in Brazil to walk out on PetroXM, and she stared them down. She wasn’t going to fall apart now. She just had to focus on the aisles one at a time, on the chubby little girl who had just peered over the top of a seat and then disappeared. Raquel forced herself to concentrate on that seat, on seeing the round face of that girl again. But when she got closer, there was no child in the row. Only a middle-aged woman picking at her cuticles and reading Have You Tasted the Butterflies by Beatriz Yagoda.

Have You Tasted the Butterflies by the still-missing Beatriz Yagoda joins her other titles on the best-seller list this week — and here is some other wild news for you Yagoda fans. Radio Globo has just received a report that a second writer has taken refuge in the trees of Rio. A young novelist named Vicente Tourinho was last seen scaling a banyan tree in the lovely Jardim de Alá.

What’s going on with our writers, Brazil? What’s sending them into our city parks and up into the trees?

Emma hid behind a pillar in the baggage claim. In the past, the sight of her green valise coming toward her amid the dark heaps of luggage had always brought her pleasure. But then she’d never attempted to hide from anyone arriving on the same flight.

Maybe she’d get lucky and Raquel’s luggage would emerge first.

But no, there was her green valise now, spitting out from behind the rubber flaps and moving around the carousel toward Raquel, who was staring at it as if she’d just discovered a thick hair growing back on her chin.

When Raquel reached down and yanked the valise off the carousel, Emma decided she had no choice but to step out sheepishly from behind the post. Before she left, she’d told Marcus where she was headed but asked him not to tell Raquel, not until she had something to report to redeem herself. The night before, she’d made a point of putting her things by the door to make it clear that she was leaving in the morning. And she had left for the airport. If she’d lied about her destination, it was to avoid irritating Raquel further. Traduttore, tradittore —that tired, tortured Italian cliché.

If only she’d been born a man in Babylon when translators had been celebrated as the makers of new language. Or during the Renaissance, when translation was briefly seen as a pursuit as visionary as writing. She would have been in her element then. During the Renaissance, no translator had to apologize for following her instincts to champion the work of one of the most extraordinary, under-recognized writers of her time.

The seconds it took to reach Raquel felt like each one had a century folded inside it. Look, Emma said, coming to a stop in front of her. This isn’t what it seems. I know it looks like I followed you here, but honestly—

You said you were going to finally leave us alone. You said you were going to Pittsburgh. Raquel’s voice was getting shriller with each word.

I won’t be here long, I swear. I’ll just find Rocha and—

Rocha? What’s he doing here?

He came to Salvador yesterday, Emma said. Isn’t that why you’re here?

I don’t have to tell you why I’m here.

No, of course not. Emma reached for her green valise but Raquel stuck out her foot to stop the wheels.

Where’s Rocha staying?

I don’t know, Emma said. When I find him, I’ll call you.

Oh, you will. Raquel crossed her arms. And what are you going to do for my mother if you find her? Are you going to pay off her debt? Are you going to protect her from the loan shark you thought was her friend?

I… Well, I was thinking I might…

You have no idea. Raquel snorted. Admit it, and you should keep in mind that they’ll kill you same as they would me and Marcus. They won’t care that you’re American.

I’m aware of that possibility, Emma said, though in truth she was aware of it only the way a person might hear a faint rumble of thunder on a dry day and find its menacing sound exciting without believing there was any real reason to go inside. If you need me for anything, she offered Raquel, I gave the number of my hotel to your brother.

And with that, she wheeled her bright valise toward the exit and the midday sun waiting outside. By noon, Beatriz had written in her first novel, the heat in Brazil was an animal’s mouth. It would swallow anything to feed itself.

To: eneufeld@pitt.edu

Subject: Re: Re: alive?

Emma, you have to stop this. Are you still upset about what my mother said? I should have defended you, I recognize that, but honestly, I thought it would be easier to just move on and talk about something else. My mother had her first kid at twenty. She doesn’t understand. I won’t let her drive you crazy over the wedding plans, I promise. We don’t even have to do the wedding. We can elope or wait, whatever. Just call, Emma. These people in Brazil are not your life.

Emma checked the bolt on the lock. The showerhead in the bathroom was loose, which had increased her anxiety about the door. In her panic, she’d called Marcus and then finally written to Miles with the name of her hotel in case she disappeared.

The lock on her door felt solid enough, however, and besides the faulty showerhead, the room was fine. The carpet had no stains and there was a welcoming wooden desk in the corner. Wide and sturdy, it was the sort of place where a person might sit and get her thoughts to stop spewing like hot rocks out of a volcano. Emma pulled out the chair and sat down. At first, all she could do was stare at the wall and feel futile, but that was something. Wasn’t the despair of feeling useless central to the modern human condition? Wasn’t that what Don Quijote was all about?

To shore up what sense of self-regard she had left, she opened her notebook. Perhaps it was time for her alter-haze to speak on the stand.

Emma collapsed on the first bench in the shade. She’d thought it wouldn’t take more than a morning or two to find where Rocha was lodging, but she’d already gone into fifteen five-star establishments and on every block there were more. Once again, she’d overestimated her grasp of Brazil. Sunburned and hungry, she felt a wave of dizziness and lowered her head between her knees.