Heliopolis (22 page)

‘Thank you, Zé—yet again,’ I said. ‘Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to spend some time in the kitchen.’

‘Of course. Take all the time you want. We won’t be clearing it out for a day or two.’ He shook his shoe, one of a pair in soft Italian leather, to shake off the natural debris he’d picked up in stubbing out the cigar, and then turned to head back to the party. ‘I’m going to see if any of the boys would be interested in kicking a football around. I think it might be a welcome distraction, don’t you?’

‘I’m sure it’s what my mother would have wanted.’

Something was already different about the kitchen: the door was closed. It had never been closed in my life. Security wasn’t an issue out here, and my mother never took holidays. I wondered whether she had left the farm at all in the twenty-two years she had worked there. She had been tied to it by her gratitude, by the obligation, by the gift with conditions.

The songbirds still twittered under the eaves outside. I walked down the line of cages, opening each one, and watching as each bird found the courage to flit out to nearby tree branches. Only one, the fat monk parakeet, stayed in his cage, even though I left it open all afternoon, so when I left I shut his door and took him back to the city, where he lives with me still.

It was dark inside, pleasantly cool. The fire in the hearth had burned out. I found a piece of stray cardboard, propped it up, and put a match to it. It curled and flared briefly, then died to a glimmer. The table, planed down and built up again so many times by Silvio, was piled high with cakes and sweets ordered from a flash city patisserie. They were nothing next to what my mother would have produced. I looked inside the ancient gas-powered fridge that is now my own: remains and leftovers, in plastic containers and porcelain bowls. These last swirls of sauce and morsels of meat had suddenly become very important. Pulling out a half-eaten roasted chicken, I stuck my thumb deep into what remained of the breast and gouged myself a big chunk. Nobody was around to tell me off for not carving a neat slice.

Still chewing, I opened the freezer compartment. It was filled with meticulously labelled tubs: stews,
moquecas
, soups. These were commodities whose value had shot up in the last twenty-four hours. Once, the contents of these tubs had been commonplace. Now they were finite, priceless. I began working out how I would get them back to the city without thawing them—I would not leave one portion here to be forgotten or discarded.

The door was pushed open with a creak. Melissa stood in the entrance, dust around her hair, the light at a high pitch. She looked older. Those legs of hers were more intimidating than ever. But she wore the same white, plastic watch.

‘Shall I leave you alone?’ she said.

‘No.’

‘You’ve been avoiding me.’

‘Yes,’ I admitted.

She stepped inside. I inhaled slowly, pulling the warm earth and tree bark of the outside through Melissa’s perfume and into the homely smoke of the hearth. The bone-warm air of the farm, so different from the liquid heat of the city.

‘It’s good to see you,’ I said. ‘How’s married life?’

‘Truthfully? It’s a little lonely.’

This room that signified my mother, now empty of her, felt different. There was a need to fill the space with something—to reoccupy it.

‘Ernesto isn’t here?’

She shook her head. ‘He heard it was a small, family thing. And he’s working. But he asked me to give you a hug from him.’

And then came the embrace, that became a soft kiss on the cheek.

‘I’ve missed you,’ she said.

‘I wanted to come home before—after what happened to you.’

‘It was painful. But Ernesto was wonderful. It shouldn’t be a big deal any more.’

‘But it is?’

She nodded.

And now, as on no occasion before or since, things graduated smoothly, logically. After several botched attempts, the only meaningful time Melissa and I made love took place on the kitchen table, dutifully planed down by Silvio, amid the cakes ordered for my mother’s funeral.

And that’s where it should end, with the two of us gloriously fucking there, smearing food all over ourselves, giggling, finally able to be with one another in the way I had known we could be. The forest, delivering my reward.

But it doesn’t end there. Because all she was doing on that table was snaring me, pulling me further on to the hook. And we have this vulgar postscript, tacked on to the story proper, which now threatens to dwarf it, like a tumour grown larger than its host. Because for nearly three years since then I have lived this half-life, hiding in my one-room apartment, with my caged bird, and my one plate, my one knife and my one fork. And the only thing I have in my life which I value is the withdrawn version of Melissa I sleep with today, and Ernesto deceived, and Oscar down my throat, and no way out of any of it.

It does not seem like a fair deal, the one that I struck with the forest. If I had the Melissa of that day, the one on the kitchen table, the one who missed me and wanted me and needed me, then I might be happy.

But the deal does not work.

I do not feel adequately remunerated.

S
lanting light cross-hatched by sackcloth threads. The inside of the bag smells of must, food and urine. There’s the feeling of insects too, though that could be my skin creeping at the texture, with the fear. A door slams, and I am thrown to the floor.

‘Did you think you were getting away that easily?’

A spiteful kick to my stomach makes a reply impossible. I double up, curling away from the unseen foot. My hands grope across a textured, humid floor.

We are somewhere in the favela, and Milton has found some friends—at least two good, strong pairs of arms brought me here. The process of disorientation was deliberate, they marched me down so many tight alleys and round so many corners that it was like stumbling round a never-ending Escher staircase. I am smothered by dirty heat, maddened by this crawling skin and by the buzzing of flies. Escape is out of the question.

I wonder if I still have it in me to pull all those facial contortions I did as a child—rolling my eyes back in my head, teeth chattering, as if performing a
Macumba
ritual—the performance that saved Melissa. The one that might save me now.

‘Please—give me some air,’ I say, taking laboured, rasping breaths. ‘I think I may be about to have an epileptic fit. Take off the bag.’

There is laughter. ‘Having a fit, are you? Shame.’ Milton brings his mouth in close to my ear so that I can feel his breath even through the bag. ‘You don’t fool me, brother. I’m the conman, don’t you
re-mem
. . .
ber
? So be sensible, and stop the theatrical shit. If you try anything like that again you’ll make things much worse.’

He pulls away, and raises his voice. He wants to appear in charge, to assert his ownership of the situation, and of me, to the others—whoever they are. ‘Now. This flimsy little guy is on trial.’

‘You don’t need to do this,’ I say. ‘I came here to apologise.’

‘And bring my sister little love gifts. And pose for pictures with my mother.’

‘I didn’t know she was your sister,’ I manage, fighting nausea, trying to get my breath back.

‘Half-sister. And I’m very protective of her. Which means that you, my friend, are in trouble.’ His friends laugh.

‘You can’t be serious. Just because I brought her some camera film—’

‘I’m very fucking serious, playboy. If you speak to her again, I’ll cut off your tongue. And if you try to see her, I’ll poke out your eyes. Understand?’

‘You always were a tough talker. Take this bag off so I can see your face.’

Another kick, this one to my ribs. The pain explodes in my chest. I scream.

‘Keep making jokes and see what happens. No, friend, the bag stays on, so you can’t see how terrifying we are to look at. So you can imagine the worst thing in the world, and then double it, and then shit your pants. Stand up.’

‘If you want me to shit my pants I would rather stay seated.’

‘Do you want another kick? Because I’ll do it. I’m all ready to hurt you, brother. Just like you hurt me. You should be impressed. Even with this busted collarbone I can still kick you round the floor like a rag football.’

‘Don’t. I can’t move as it is.’

I am still rolling on the floor from the second kick. Inside the bag, I am drooling, and I can taste the salt-rust tang of blood. My chest is on fire. Two pairs of hands grab me by the arms, haul me to my feet, guide me backwards and push me down into what feels like a flimsy plastic chair.

I feel as if I have been duped, as if the girl were nothing but bait, a juicy decoy left hanging for me inside the gaping jaws of a flytrap. It isn’t like that, of course. The boy is not nearly as in control as he pretends. He is scared and confused. He is also, as I am beginning to realise, extremely paranoid.

I can make him out through the sack—a heavy-breathing, anxious shape. He wants to start hurting me properly, but if he does he might never find out how I came to be here, paying visits to his sister, and how there came to be a photograph of me with my arm around his mother on the wall of his kitchen. I tell myself,
These are just children. They’re boys. Don’t be afraid
.

Milton is certainly afraid of me. He can’t imagine how I infiltrated his life like this. I mustn’t let him know that it happened entirely by accident. If I demystify myself he will remember nothing more than that I got him shot, and I will end up dead.

‘What shall we call you? We’ll call you bag, seeing as that’s what you are. You are just a bag, right?’

‘Right,’ I say, settling in the chair, trying not to topple over.

‘Just a bag that we can use how we like, right? For example, we could fill the bag with shit and chuck it in the street. We could piss in the bag. Couldn’t we?’

For the first time, I hear a voice other than Milton’s. ‘Why are we doing this? Why don’t we just rob him and get out of here?’

‘Because I found a picture of him with my
mother
.’

I speak quickly. ‘I can explain that. We work in the same building.’

‘Did I tell you that you could speak, bag?’

‘About the photograph. It’s very simple. I work with your mother, and we became friends. That’s it.’

‘You work in that building? The Beehive?’

‘Yes. Check my wallet if you don’t believe me.’

‘We’ll be taking that anyway, my friend. You needn’t worry about that.’

A set of hands pats down my pockets roughly until they find my wallet, and remove it.

‘Do you see? Please, just take off the bag, and let’s talk. For God’s sake, I’m like you. I come from somewhere just like this.’

‘You are not like us. Look at you. Look at your clothes. Someone like you is never going to be friends with my mother.’

‘I swear I am. I was born in Heliópolis.’

There is much laughter at this, which enables me to guess how many there are in the room. Three, maybe four.

‘Born in Heliópolis?’ says Milton. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘I was adopted. By this guy. He owns supermarkets. You know MaxiMarket? He owns them
all
. Understand? So he has plenty of money. Whatever you want, he will pay it.’ Pause. They smirk. They start laughing again.

‘I can’t believe you’re jumping in offering a ransom. You rich guys—you think we just kidnap people all the time? That kidnapping is just what we
do
?’

A third voice chips in. ‘I don’t need your money, brother. I got all the money I need. I got the latest Nikes. I got enough to snort. I got enough to smoke. We’re doing this for
personal
reasons, understand?’

‘There’s no point in doing this,’ says the second voice. The one belonging to the guy who just wanted to rob me and have done with it. ‘This fool would say anything to get out of here. He’s no playboy. I say we kick him down the hill. Or leave him here to die.’

‘No!’ I say. ‘If you don’t believe me then look it up. I bet one of you can get to a computer. Find out about Zé Fischer Carnicelli. He’s my adoptive father. He’d pay all the money you want.’

A pause. I can sense them looking at each other, thinking, What the hell? In my terror of being hurt, I’ve turned this into a kidnap situation. Ingenious.

‘You better be right about this.’ My arms are lashed crudely to the plastic chair at the elbows with what feels like electric wire. A door opens, and I hear retreating footsteps.

‘Wait!’ I say. ‘Can you bring me some water?’

‘Don’t bet on it, bag,’ says the last of the retreating voices. I am alone, tied to the chair with a bag over my head, with nothing but the sound of a lively Carnival classic from a distant, tinny radio:
Mamãe eu quero. Mamãe eu quero. Mamãe eu quero, mama . . .

Saturday night on the farm. I am eleven.

Unusually, there are no weekend guests, and in their absence Zé is even more relaxed than usual. He played water polo with Melissa and me this afternoon, and is embarking on his fourth caipirinha of the evening.

‘Tell me a story,’ he says, leaning back in a huge white armchair. ‘I wish to be entertained.’

‘What would you like it to be about?’ Rebecca says, a glass of wine in her hand. She is relaxed, too, and enjoying her drunk husband.

‘How about the story of when you came and found me and my mother in the favela?’ I ask, emboldened by the intimacy of the atmosphere.

‘Found you?’ Zé says, not thinking, staring at the ceiling. ‘You found us, more like.’

Rebecca jumps in, cutting off his sentence. ‘That’s enough from you. I’ll tell you a good story if you shut up.’ She speaks so quickly I almost don’t have time to register what he said.

But I do register it. And the flash of panic in her eyes.

The bag, the solitude, the pain—it’s all taking my head to unfrequented places. I don’t know how long I have been here, alone with my mind. But it is dawning on me that I may be here for some time. And because I’m me, the fear has made me hungry. So hungry that my groaning, coiling stomach feels like it might digest itself.

I can tell it’s getting dark. Not just because of the change in the light—the atmosphere is changing too. We are probably in a quiet corner of the favela, but I can hear activity, and voices, as workers return home, and food is prepared, and drinks are poured, and cigarettes lit.

A thin strip of flesh, salty with blood, hangs from inside my cheek where I have bitten myself during the struggle. I work my teeth around it, chewing the tiny morsel a little before swallowing.

Suddenly, they are back. I can smell
cachaça
fumes, and one of them is smoking a joint.

‘Water,’ says a voice, and a plastic bottle is held to my lips. It barely contains a mouthful, but I try to swill it round as much as possible and swallow gratefully.

‘So, bag. We did some research. This father of yours is a pretty important guy. So we’re going to feed you up. Got to keep you in good condition if we’re going to get a nice, fat ransom. I got you something special.’

There is pressure on my head. I can feel them tying a bandanna round my eyes. It cuts out the light altogether. Then they lift up the lower part of the sack and fold it up and over the blindfold, so that my mouth and nose are exposed, though I can see even less than before.

An object is wafted under my nose. The smell is ripe and tropical, sweet yet spiked with something more fundamentally delicious. It’s mango. Luscious mango. The smell of childhood. The smell of freedom. Saliva springs in my mouth.

‘Like the smell of that, do you?’ says Milton. ‘Want me to cut you a piece, “Ludwig”?’ They have been looking through my wallet.

‘Ludo. People call me Ludo. Yes please,’ I say, trying not to gasp it.

‘Get ready, because here it comes.’

‘Are you ready?’

‘Yes,’ I say.

‘Open your mouth then.’

Something passes between my lips. Something wet and fibrous. Something that is not mango. The taste of putrefying, rotten meat blossoms in my mouth and too late the stench reaches my nose. I spit and retch simultaneously, and a bitter jet of vomit shoots down my shirt.

They laugh. I moan, trying to expel images from my head of what it might have been. My imagination is running wild though I am desperately trying to suppress it. Who knows what it was: flesh, a decaying creature.

‘What was that?’ I manage, after another dry heave.

‘I’ll tell you what that was,’ says Milton. ‘That was a lesson in trust. You lied to us. You abused our trust. So we fucked with yours. And that’s the way life is.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that we looked up your Zé Carnicelli—and there’s nothing about you anywhere. It says he has a daughter called Melinda, and doesn’t say anything about you.’

‘Melissa. She’s called Melissa.’

‘And the name in your wallet is dos Santos—and so I think your little scheme has fucked up, “Ludo.” What are you going to do now? Now that we know you are worthless. Now that we know you are nobody.’

‘Believe me, it’s true. They made me keep my name for protection. So that kidnappers wouldn’t know about the connection.’

‘Is that right?’ More laugher. ‘I have to hand it to you,’ Milton says, ‘you improvise well. But I seem to remember you being somewhat rude about the story I told you when we first met. Remember that?’

‘I remember.’

‘So I won’t trust you either. That seems fair. I don’t think you were born in Heliópolis, and I don’t think you have any connections with this Zé guy. I think you are nothing at all. You’re just a bag. A dirty bag covered in puke that we need to hose down and throw away.’

I hear a zip being undone and even though I don’t want to, I know what’s coming next. A thin stream of liquid hits my chest as the boy urinates on me, not much, no more than a token effort—something symbolic.

‘And now we’re going to make you wish your nerves were dead.’

A kick to the jaw, so hard I see a flash inside the bag. My head snaps back. The pain is a bomb in my face.

And now the fear is real. These people wouldn’t care if they killed me. Why should they? I am fighting for my life.

‘Jeitinho,’ I say, through a bubbling mouthful of blood. Even saying the word sends a jolt of agony through my jaw. ‘Jeitinho.’

‘What?’

‘Jeitinho, from the Shadow Command. I know him.’

‘What did you say?’

‘A friend of mine—my brother-in-law—does business with him. So you have to stop this now. He won’t be happy. His name is Jeitinho. Do you know him?’

A hot, anxious, heavy-breathing silence ensues.

‘How do you know that name?’

‘That’s what you should be asking yourself. How do I know that name?’ I speak quickly, through the pain, through the blood.

I can understand his confusion. ‘One minute you tell us you are from a favela. The next that you are so wealthy that we could ask for any amount of ransom money for you. Now you’re saying you’re best friends with a Shadow Command
traficante
. Just who exactly are you?’

‘It’s all true. The first two things might not matter to you, but this one does. Are you prepared to take the risk that I might be telling the truth? Is Jeitinho the kind of guy you want to piss off?’