Heliopolis (20 page)

‘You . . . you did it for me?’

‘I didn’t see any reason to endanger his friendship with you as well as his marriage to me.’

I blink twice and stare at the graffiti on my office wall. The word FREEDOM, painted in giant yellow letters, swims before my eyes.

‘Ludo? Are you still there?’

‘I’m here.’

‘How is he?’ she asks, tentatively.

‘Not great. I think you’re right—it has to stop. For good.’

‘I’m glad you agree.’

‘Thank you for not saying it was me.’

‘You’re still my brother, though. You’re not ducking out of that one.’

I sit at my desk, head in hands. There is no guy at the office. The information should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. Because of me, Ernesto thinks his wife has been cheating on him, and the simple fact is that she hasn’t—at least, not in the way he thinks she has. Her mind slams the door on me whenever we are together, and keeps it firmly shut. It isn’t right that Melissa should be protecting me like this. Nor is it right that Ernesto should be imagining something worse than the truth.

I pick up the phone again.

‘What’s so urgent that we have to meet now? I have a lot of work to do and I need to get home to see Melissa. This thing is eating me up.’

‘I have to talk to you first.’

We’re in a bar halfway between my apartment and the penthouse, a comfortable, unpretentious place we liked during our student days, with sawdust on the floor and little wire cages on the tables for salt, pepper, toothpicks, Tabasco. The Bohemia beer pump on the bar is so chilled that a thick carapace of solid ice has formed around it, and our glasses of very cold beer are refilled automatically by the waiter as we talk. A spirited game of dominoes is taking place at the table behind us, and there’s a pleasant, after-work vibe which would make this meeting agreeable, were it not for the conversation Ernesto and I are about to have.

‘Well—what is it?’ He tosses a palmful of peanuts to the back of his mouth, and holds up his beer glass, which is slick with condensation. ‘Your health.’

‘There are a couple of things I need to say to you. The first is that I think I might be able to help you with your other problem.’

‘What other problem?’

‘The one you told me about, to do with the Shadow Command. I think there might be a way I can get them to leave you alone.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘No, but I can try. What was the guy’s name again?’

‘I only know him as Jeitinho.’

‘And you don’t know which favela he lives in?’

‘Not exactly, but I think it’s not far from your office. What are you going to do?’

‘Leave it to me, will you? I want to sort this out for you.’

‘Ludo, this is incredibly dangerous. You should stay out of it.’

‘Believe me, I should be the one doing this for you.’

‘Why?’

I look him in the eye. ‘You aren’t going to like it.’

Something firms up in his expression, and now I have his full attention. ‘OK.’

‘Melissa is lying to you. There is no guy at the office.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Just listen for a second. She’s lying to you. But you can trust her. Because she’s only lying to protect me.’

His beer glass stops halfway to his mouth. ‘To protect you? What do you mean?’

‘It’s me who’s been sleeping in your bed. I go over there sometimes when you’re away. She hates being on her own.’

‘You?’

‘Yes, me.’

‘But just like a brother-sister thing.’

I pause, keeping his eye. ‘Not always, no.’

He exhales slowly, painfully, riding the wave of this revelation.

‘But as far as where our heads were,
always
a brother-sister thing,’ I say. ‘And nothing more.’

‘This is difficult.’

‘I don’t expect you to like it, or to like me for it. But I wanted to tell you so that you knew the size of the problem. And believe me, it’s tiny. It’s nothing. Because she is devoted to you.’

Telling him was the right thing to do. His mind is no longer blitzing him with the worst it can muster. But it isn’t going to make my life any easier. Now, he has the tough gristle of this fact to focus on, and work over.

He looks at me, aghast. ‘What am I supposed to do with this information? I don’t want to have to start hating you.’

‘You don’t have to do anything. I’m the one who has things to do. You should go home and see Melissa. Call me if you want to shout at me, or make an appointment to beat me up.’

‘What do you have to do?’

‘A lot, as I am beginning to realise.’

The promise I have made to Ernesto is crazy. Attempting to enter the favela, track down the
dono
of a drug gang, and persuade him to sacrifice some of his business is suicide. It’s more than that; it’s violent torture, then suicide. And there is a ticking time bomb waiting for me in the shape of Flávia’s son. But something has changed—I want to face up to these things. I want to put myself in harm’s way. Inexplicably, this realisation and my confession to Ernesto combine to give me one of the best night’s sleep I can remember.

Angel Park. I am fourteen, and Rebecca has come to wish me goodnight. By my bed stands the photograph I have always known, taken on the day she came to rescue us: my mother and Rebecca with their bowls of beans, sharing their flashlit black and white smile over my infant form. The look between them in the picture is so trusting and complicit that it is hard to believe they have only just met.

‘Are you settling in OK?’ Rebecca asks, sitting on the bed. ‘Is there anything you need?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘You aren’t missing home too much?’

‘A little. But I’m excited to be here.’

She picks up the photograph, which is leaning on my bedside light, and smiles at it. ‘It’s a long time since this was taken. Look at you, sweet little baby.’

‘Do you think my father was there then? On the day you came to find us?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I sometimes wonder whether he was living in the same favela as us at this time—or whether he’d already run off.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You know—if the camera had been nudged at the time the picture was taken you might have seen part of his arm, or something. Looking at this, he could be just at the edge of the photo, in the background.’

‘He wasn’t,’ Rebecca said, standing up abruptly. ‘Take it from me. I was there. Goodnight.’

The set, slightly flushed expression on her face as she leaves the room is puzzling. If I didn’t know better I would think I had angered her. It takes me hours to get to sleep, and I resolve to steer clear of the topic of my father in future. No good ever comes of it.

Driving past the office gatehouse, under the shady mantle of the avocado tree, I wave at the guard behind his bulletproof screen, and he waves back to signal that he is letting me in. The twin red and amber lights above the entrance to the underground car park blink their ambivalent message as the metal gate slides sideways on rusty hinges. Bright sunlight is extinguished as I drive down the ramp with a squeal of tyres, and I remove my sunglasses to accustom my eyes to the gloom. The cosy, rubbery smell of subterranean safety and the echoing rattle of the closing gate tell me that nothing can come for me now. As I lock my car and walk to the lift I wonder how Melissa’s and Ernesto’s evening ended last night. Even if she is furious with me for exposing the fact that she lied to him, I still think I did the right thing.

At the ground floor the lift doors open on Dennis, looking worried, standing by a potted cactus. He gives me a hesitant look before stepping inside, so I conclude he must be brooding because I laid into his work. But I am well rested and feeling optimistic, and I greet him warmly.

‘About yesterday,’ I say. ‘I hope you weren’t too upset by what I said about your ideas. They just got me thinking.’

‘I’m not precious. You spoke your mind.’

‘Good. I wouldn’t like you to think—’

‘I’ve been doing this a long time. Don’t give it another thought.’

‘OK.’

‘But listen, I spoke to Oscar. He said that in the absence of any better ideas we should at least run mine past a test audience. He mentioned one of the cleaners here—someone you know?’

‘He said that, did he?’

‘She works in the building, right? So we could do it this morning.’

In the absence of any better ideas
. By the time the lift doors unleash me on the second floor, that good mood has evaporated completely.

I scour the building, trying not to look as if I am listening outside the door of every toilet—which I am—before I hear the shrill blast of her waistband radio.

‘Get out of here. You know this is the Ladies?’ she says shooing me away from the door of a fourth floor facility painted bright green.

‘I need to talk to you.’

‘I’m working. I don’t want to listen to your crap today.’

‘This is work too. I need you to come to one of the meeting rooms.’

Our intimacy was so hard earned and so fragile that this remark destroys it completely. ‘What’s the matter? Is the room dirty?’ The sudden formality in her voice is hateful.

‘No, we just need to ask your advice about something.’

I try to make conversation during the walk to the room but her retreat away from me is complete, and she barely responds.
At least Oscar isn’t going to be there as well
, I think. But I have reckoned without Dennis’s enthusiasm.

‘Good morning, Senhora. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Ludo tells me that you work in our building,’ says Oscar from the doorway, somehow managing to smuggle through this ridiculous slight in a gush of charm. He must have walked past her a thousand times.

‘Pleased to meet you, Senhor,’ she says, quietly.

‘We wondered if you could help us by looking at some work in progress, and telling us what you think of it.’

‘OK.’

‘These posters are very early ideas, so please say whatever you like about them. We would greatly value your opinion.’ He speaks slowly, in a voice so patronising I want to punch him.

The Australian lays out the boards he presented in yesterday’s meeting.
MaxiBudget: On Your Side. MaxiBudget: Now It’s Your Turn
. He and Oscar stand back to watch Flávia as she looks at them.

‘I’m sorry, Senhor. I don’t understand.’

‘Just tell us what you feel when you see them, please.’

‘You want me to say what I feel?’

‘Yes please. Anything at all.’

My stomach lurches. What if she can’t read?

‘
Now It’s Your Turn
,’ she says. ‘I don’t like the sound of that. My turn to do what?’

Oscar and Dennis laugh indulgently, as if she’s making a joke.

‘Your friend Ludo thinks that positioning MaxiBudget in this way is wrong, because it’s talking down to people. But don’t you think having an ally like this in your life would be a good thing?’ says Dennis.

Oscar jumps in quickly. ‘I think what we’re asking is a much more simple question. Would you be tempted to shop at this supermarket?’

‘What supermarket?’ says Flávia.

‘You didn’t know this advertisement was for a supermarket?’

‘No, Senhor. How was I meant to know that?’

‘From the food in the pictures. And the logo.’

‘But the pictures are mostly of children. And the food is all rotten.’

Oscar is losing his patience. ‘You really didn’t know it was for a supermarket?’

‘Sorry, Senhor. No,’ she says, quietly.

‘But I thought Ludo had been doing research with you into your feelings about budget supermarkets.’

She looks at me, bewildered, then back at him. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘I see. You can go now. Thanks for your help.’

Oscar’s words pursue me as I slip out of the room to follow her. ‘You’re a fucking liar, Ludo.’

Flávia has collected her rubbish sack from the bathroom she was cleaning before I interrupted her, and is dragging it slowly up the stairs to the next floor when I intercept her.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ I say, trying to sound friendly. ‘Shall we have lunch?’

She turns on me quickly. ‘Please don’t ever speak to me again, unless you’re asking for more toilet paper.’

‘What do you mean?’

She stops on the stair, breathing heavily. ‘These supermarkets. How cheap are they?’

‘I think they are going to be very cheap.’

‘Give me examples. How much is a kilo of rice at this supermarket? How much is a piece of salt pork? How much is a papaya?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say.

‘Then I will give you some advice, and it won’t cost you one damn milkshake. Don’t tell me that
It’s My Turn
. If you want me to shop at your supermarket then tell me that I can feed my son for a handful of coins, and then I might think about it.’

I stare at her. ‘Why are you being like this? I wasn’t the one asking you those questions.’

‘Yes you were. If you want me to be your guinea pig, then tell me that’s what’s going on. But don’t ever pretend to be my friend again.’

It is darker today, and without Flávia the favela feels different. Loud, jarring music plays from unseen windows, and the air feels charged. As I pass the tattered fragments stuck to the billboards on the outskirts, I hear an argument raging behind a door, and pass it quickly, afraid that I might bring the anger down on my head. The intimacy that pleasantly surprised me before—the noise, the lack of space, the sweet smells of rotting garbage—all this seems oppressive today. But I can’t afford to be nervous. I stopped wondering whether coming here was a good idea some time during Oscar’s screaming fit in his office. I decided it was better just to do it.

I don’t care who you are. I don’t care who your father is. Start taking this seriously or there will be no job. Why do you always have to let me down like this? Why do you have to disappoint me?

This time I think he means it. But Oscar could shout all day and it wouldn’t make a difference, because at work nothing stands to change for me whatever I do. That is not the case where I am now.