Heliopolis (12 page)

I couldn’t focus on the conversation. Not because of the room, or even the feeding of the cats, though both were distracting enough. I kept hearing a series of wet, staccato noises, like clusters of bubbles breaking the surface of water, just out of my line of sight, but close enough to make me wince and turn sharply every time. It took me half an hour to identify where the noise was coming from: it was the traffic of saliva as yet another false smile broke on Olinda’s teeth. As for her, with every turn of my head she shot me an indulgent look, probably explaining away my erratic behaviour to herself as evidence of the strange foibles of the poor and muddled.

Still more distracting was the change that came over Melissa during the meal. It was as if she too were performing—adopting a dinner table persona for Ernesto’s parents.

The violence of the city was alluded to regularly, but in an oblique, glancing way, with jokes, as if to address it with sincerity would be to plumb the depths of poor taste. Instead, their fear found expression in blasé jokes about holdups and kidnappings, in which even Melissa participated. I kept my head down and concentrated on my food.

‘I hear you are originally from Heliópolis, Ludo. I was near there myself recently. The area has changed a great deal.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ I said. ‘I have no memory of it.’

‘Let me tell you, it would have been a squalid place when you were born. And violent too. You are lucky to be out of there.’

‘That reminds me,’ said Ernesto. ‘We got threatened today by one of those idiot guards.’

‘What were you doing this time?’ said his father.

‘Firing your gun in one of the unfinished houses.’

Gaspar laughed. ‘And the guard took exception? How unreasonable.’

Olinda shot him a delighted look as she tore up
poussin
flesh.

‘It wasn’t my idea,’ said Ernesto. ‘Zé asked me to do it.’

‘He wanted you to teach Ludo how to fire a gun? Why?’

‘So he could take care of himself in the city.’

Gaspar turned to me. ‘I think our neighbour is being paranoid. The security forces here in the community are well trained. As your run-in with them would prove.’ His wife smiled. The noise made me jump. ‘But of course, if you hadn’t been rescued from Heliópolis, you wouldn’t need Ernesto to give you lessons in how to fire guns. You’d have been the one teaching him.’

Olinda responded with a mock-appalled intake of breath, and dropped meat on the floor. Melissa laughed in a way I’d never heard before—an infuriating, indulgent chortle that was not hers.

Gaspar and Olinda were so closed off from everyday life that they had been forced to become infatuated with themselves. They had walled themselves up in Angel Park, but remained so afraid of the world outside that they didn’t even dare look—however much they joked about it. Their food was similarly insular: grand but bland, rich but soulless. It was food that went far out of its way to avoid the national and the honest, and sought some bereft version of the international instead. It left me feeling sick and gasping for cold water. It frothed and churned in my groaning stomach all night long, just as the evening’s small talk would gurgle away in my head for days afterwards.

I have often been shocked by Melissa’s manners. My own were drilled into me during my time ‘in servitude,’ as it might have been called in another century. My mother was strict on the subject, so I knew what was polite and what wasn’t, and it never occurred to me that you could appear charming by being cocky or smart. I don’t mean that Melissa was rude, just that her way of being polite differed radically from mine because it relied on the function of her charm.

That night I watched Ernesto with fascination. He ate his fish messily, then requested a second helping in spite of having left large sections of the first, whereas I had painstakingly collected every last speck of sauce from my plate so as not to appear ungrateful. And he lounged across the table, elbows out, gesticulating with his cutlery, and shovelled in his food with his fork upside down, which my mother had told me I must never do, because I was not some poor street kid who didn’t know any better. Miraculously, I had been spared that life.

D
espite the late night, I wake up early. Things shuffle and stir on my balcony. A hornet peers through the shutters with one beady eye. A bright scarlet butterfly looms and is gone. Half asleep, I imagine that the jungle has advanced on the city while I slept, and that on my way to work, instead of apocalyptic traffic and police brutality, I might encounter the crazy scale shifts of the rain forest: cats big as bears, butterflies broad as your head, fox-sized rodents, rodent-sized foxes. Tyres scream in the street, shattering the illusion. It isn’t the first time nature has crept up on me like that. I still miss the farm every night.

Swinging one leg to the floor to get myself out of bed, I feel my foot brush against something. Blue-grey morning light confers beauty on a used tissue, which looks like a frothy white rose, rooted in the floor. Mercifully, there’s no sign of blood, but a metallic taste is still evident towards the back of my mouth from the nosebleed. It’s not altogether unpleasant: perhaps a rare steak for lunch.

I feel filthy, and I can’t remember how the evening finished, which is a bad sign. I am conscious though of something in the air, some residue of unpleasantness, as of a drunken argument left unresolved. As of the cordite whiff that lingered in the air yesterday after the boy was shot. Also, I’ve slept in my clothes, and the body I discover when I peel off Ernesto’s giant shirt is a
bollito misto
of steamed meats. Deciding that the shirt will need a professional clean before I can slip it back in Ernesto’s wardrobe, I run my thumbs up my body, nail-side down. What arrives at my nostrils when I bring up my hands bears the too-human stench of an overcrowded bus or a staff canteen. I make for the shower to blast it away.

It’s one of those mornings when the idea of work actually appeals. My bird trills away beautifully in his cage, my morning coffee tastes good and I’m even looking forward to the MaxiBudget meeting. Oscar will know I had a late night, so an early appearance will score points. I want him to register me, perky and alert, and compare that image favourably to whatever we see when the Australian creeps in.

To my surprise, and to his credit, he doesn’t look too bad. He’s ditched the saddlebag trousers for a suit, and looks only slightly haggard and withdrawn. If I didn’t know that he woke up spattered in blood with an unidentified gold bra linking his wrist with the bedhead, I might think he looked well rested.

‘Good night?’ I enquire.

‘Oh . . . amazing.’ He laughs weakly. ‘To be honest, I can’t remember you leaving.’

‘You don’t remember?’ I lean forward so only he can hear.

‘How was she? She looked spectacular when she got out of the lift.’

He clears his throat and I notice sweat running down behind his ears.

‘Good morning gentlemen.’ Oscar has materialised. ‘I hope Ludo showed you a good time last night?’

‘Great,’ says the Australian.

Oscar raises his palms in defence. ‘I don’t want to hear about it. I’m sure it would embarrass me.’

‘I doubt that,’ I say, picturing him pawing at my mother back on the farm. ‘Let’s just say we covered some of the city’s key attractions.’

‘Excellent. What I wouldn’t give to be a single man about town again,’ he says. ‘Now, Ludo. Good news. Dennis is going to be working with us on the MaxiBudget project while he’s here. We’re going to put him right in the thick of it.’

‘Who the hell is Dennis?’

‘That’s me,’ says the Australian.

‘Of course it is,’ I say. ‘Forgive me.’

‘You degenerates!’ says Oscar. ‘Can’t even remember each other’s names. Pull yourselves together, and I’ll see you at the meeting.’ He turns and heads away down the corridor.

‘Sorry about that,’ I say. ‘My brain is useless today.’

‘So is mine,’ says Dennis, smiling weakly. ‘Thank you for . . . everything.’

‘No
worries
,’ I say, in English, doing a poor imitation of the accent. ‘Welcome home!’

I will probably never know exactly what abstract nightmare he has conjured from the available clues—whatever his suspicions of me, he will not dare raise the subject again—but I doubt it’s a relaxing one. This crucial victory obtained, my energy levels dip, and my brain registers the cold edge of a hangover. I must still have been drunk when I woke up.

The light on my phone is flashing, and I press the button to hear the message without thinking. The usual familiar background sounds float out of the speaker: the rushing water, the high machine whine. I can make out what sounds like someone settling into a chair, and lighting a cigarette. Then the whispered voice floats out, barely audible at all unless you’re listening for it, which I am. I’m feeling tough enough to let this one run, to allow the bile to flow out, to hear what it has to say.

I want you to really listen to me tonight. This is important. It’s LIFE OR DEATH. Understand? It isn’t even what you’re doing to others that I care about—be a bastard to the whole world for all I care. Who am I to stop you? No. It’s what you’re doing to yourself that drives me nuts. How can you live with yourself? How can you do this, after the opportunities you’ve had?

Is it such a crazy idea to think that it’s Ernesto? There’s nothing in his diary about it, but then I haven’t dipped in there for a while. The sanctimony certainly fits. Suddenly, I’m convinced of it, and angry. How dare he talk about my ‘opportunities’? I never asked to be taken off the streets and used as Zé’s vanity project. I have the receiver in my hand, ready to dial Ernesto’s number and ask him point blank whether it’s him, whether he knows about me and his wife, when Oscar appears in the doorway.

‘Well done, Ludo. You obviously really fucked up poor Dennis last night. But I hope you haven’t forgotten about this MaxiBudget meeting. The clients will be here at midday, and I want something spectacular from you. Especially with your unique insight into this market.’

‘As I keep telling you, I don’t have a unique insight into this market.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you tell me. It only matters what I have been telling them. And what I have been telling them is that we have a success story right here in our office, who rose up from the slums to become a promising young executive. But one who hasn’t forgotten where he came from. One who was born to work on MaxiBudget. Do you hear me?’

‘I hear you,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll have something.’

‘Good,’ says Oscar. ‘I want to impress this guy. I want him to be bowled over by our insight before he’s even explained what he wants us to do.’

When he’s gone, I blunder to a favourite bathroom cubicle towards the back of the building, overlooking the favela, enter, and with little ceremony curl up around the bowl and close my eyes. I’ve become accustomed to sleeping in here. I like the warmth, and the enclosure. Even the ambient noise has become associated with sleep for me, to the point that the blast of hand driers and any activity in the adjacent cubicles do not wake me up.

I don’t know how long I’m asleep for—maybe ten minutes. Long enough to get comfortable. Long enough to leap with fright when the unlocked cubicle door swings open and a damp mop is thrust towards my face. I shout. The cleaner propelling the mop sees me and it swiftly retreats.

‘Excuse me,’ she says, backing out, trying to disguise her amusement. But the doors back there swing shut very slowly, and even though my eyes are gummed together I have time to see her shaking her head as she walks away, dragging her black bin liner with her.

Time to do some work
, I think, springing up to give chase. My face clings to the tile like chewing gum as I rip it off the floor, and leap, too quickly, to my feet. I almost black out as I follow her out of the stall and into the corridor. Hearing me approach, she stops and turns round.

‘There are tile marks on your face. You should wait here a minute before you go back to work.’

‘Could I ask you something?’

‘Yes?’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Flávia.’

Why have I never thought to find that out before?

Why have I thought to find it out now?

‘Can I get you something to drink?’ I say. ‘A coffee?’

The offer is so weird that I suppose she can’t think of a convincing way to say no. We walk through the office together. She hesitates before joining me in the lift. If people are surprised to see us leaving the building together they don’t show it—or perhaps the sight is so alien that they just don’t see it. I watch her from the side. She wears a huge black smock that hints at a big shapeless body beneath, and a powerful undercarriage at work. She walks slowly but deliberately, making more elaborate movements than are necessary, as if she were proceeding through water.

Presently, we’re sitting on metal stools at a bustling corner
lanchonete
a few blocks from the office. Customers eat sitting or standing at a worn, semi-circular enamel bar. The seductive fug of grilling cheeseburgers is cut through by a zesty citrus tang thrown out by a juicing machine that takes up most of the back wall. An endless line of oranges rolls down a wire gully before each one is mechanically halved and eviscerated. The place serves great juice, and has a fast turnover. There’s a sign boasting that when it gets to you, your juice is so fresh that it ‘thinks it’s still in the orange.’ It’s not the best way to sell orange juice, if you ask me. It makes me think of decapitated chickens running round farmyards, of eyes blinking in guillotined heads.

Flávia gives me a puzzled smile. I notice that two of her front teeth are broken. Her skin looks colourless and unhealthy. She is very tired.

‘Why are we here?’ she says.

‘I wanted to get to know you a little. And get out of the office.’

‘Haven’t you got work to do?’

‘Nothing important.’

I order a large orange juice for myself and, at her request, an avocado
vitamina
for Flávia. The avocado is peeled before us, its fat seed plucked out like an eyeball, and the flesh diced. In the liquidiser, the fresh green cubes vanish and blur in a whiz of sugar and condensed milk. The cold tumbler of glossy liquid is set before us.

‘Do you have far to come? To work, I mean,’ I ask.

She gives the name of a neighbourhood that is literally on the other side of the city, probably two hours away on the subway and more by bus.

‘Really?’ I say. ‘You live all the way out there?’

She nods, sucking at a straw. The level of gloop in her glass smoothly drops.

‘Is that really where you live, or just where your pay cheques go?’ I ask, carefully.

My orange juice is good and pulpy. I swipe a finger through it and take a big mouthful of gunk, relishing the texture.

Softly, she spits out the end of the straw and fixes me with an iron expression. ‘So that’s why we’re here. I knew it was too damn weird.’

‘Wait—’ The fingertip pops out of the side of my mouth. She’s off. ‘Two can play at that game, Senhor. Tell your bosses I live in the favela and I’ll tell them how you like to sleep off your hangovers on toilet floors. And yes, I know that won’t do me much good, because you’re the rich kid and I’m not, so they’ll fire me and promote you, but I’ll do it anyway, because what have I got to lose? My Lord, you people! Can’t you even let a woman earn a living wiping your shit from the toilet bowl without demanding that she has a proper CEP code, and a fixed abode, and a tennis court?’

‘Please relax,’ I say. ‘That’s not why I’m here. I was just making conversation. My God.’

‘Well, don’t. I’m off. Coming here was a stupid idea.’

‘Please don’t go. Finish your drink.’

She had begun the lengthy process of removing herself from the bar stool, but now she stops. ‘No bullshit?’

‘None, I promise. I just wanted to get out of the office and talk to someone.’

We both pause while she calms down.

‘So. What’s it like?’ I say. ‘It’s the one right here by the office, isn’t it?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s better than it has been, but it’s still shit, if you’ll excuse me. My son—’

The delicious char-grill smell finally gets the better of me.

‘Would you like a cheeseburger?’ I ask.

‘You’re not even interested in what I have to say.’

‘Yes, I am, but I can’t concentrate until I have one of those

cheeseburgers in front of me. Do you want one?’

‘It’s only quarter to eleven.’

‘Breakfast burger.’

She laughs, a little ruefully. ‘If you’re paying, sure.’

I order the burgers, then turn back to her. ‘Sorry. You were talking about your son.’

Suddenly she is lost again, incredibly sad. ‘It’s nothing. It’s just that he is never very far away from violence. That’s all.’

‘Is that true? I mean, one hears things, but—’

‘Do you know what the life expectancy of a young man is where I live?’

‘I admit that I do not.’

‘Of course you don’t. Why would you? It’s better now I work at your office, but there’ve been times when I thought my boy and I might starve. You wouldn’t know anything about that.’

‘I know a little.’

‘You know nothing! How could you know? I’ve lived in some godforsaken places. I know people who live beside chemical factories and give birth to children without arms and legs. People whose water supply was poisoned by their own piss and shit. People who are afraid to fall asleep at night.’

‘But things are changing, aren’t they?
Favelados
are awarded their land these days.’

‘What does that matter? Some areas of the favela I lived in before were recognised by the government. Others were not. All that happened was that the ones who owned their houses said they were no longer part of the favela, and tried to fence themselves off from the rest.’

‘But you have amenities now, right?’

‘I have water. Electricity, some of the time. I’m not complaining. I’ve lived in shittier conditions. But it’s not exactly the Grand Hyatt, where I live. My son still has to read for school by candlelight sometimes.’ She takes another hit from the vitamina, then says, ‘You know your office was a squat?’