Crossing the River Read online

  Deeply tanned, tattooed, and ripped, Disraelle grinned with delight whenever his surfing pupils managed to catch a wave and stand. “Ótimo, ótimo!”—Awesome!

  Disraelle immediately earned Skyler’s respect when, riding a board in, he jumped lightly in a half turn to face the other direction and ended in a headstand, board still moving, just a toy in the waves. He drew diagrams in the sand, made Skyler and Molly lie facedown on the beach and jump to their feet in one smooth movement, ready to tame the board and the ocean. Out in the water, they learned how to flip the board over and slide under it to nose out through the crashing waves. Everyone stood, Skyler even pulling off a few 180-degree jumps as he coasted into the shallows.

  While my family surfed, I hired a taxi and began my search for a nine-point FireWire camera cable. Ten electronics stores later, I decided it was not available in the state of Alagoas, a reminder that when traveling, advanced technology is often unusable. During the course of my two-hour search, however, I got a much better sense of the layout of the town.

  A city of about eight hundred thousand, Maceió is built on a point jutting into the Atlantic. Beautiful beaches are lined with thatched-pavilion restaurants, palm trees, bike paths, and sailboats for rent. The cuisine ranges from the standard beach fare of grilled kebabs, corn on the cob, and água de coco to exquisitely prepared sashimi in a hermetic environment of white-cushioned sofas and bamboo mats. Along the beachfront is a parade of high-rise hotels and condominiums.

  Behind the coastal strip rise hills, where a few four-lane roads snake in and out of the dips, passing through the favelas in the valleys. Apparently these ramshackle slums—clusters of smudged plaster boxes under red-tiled roofs at best, black plastic at worst—are slated to be torn down. They’ll be replaced by high-rises into which the current residents are to move. Peter noted this had been done in the United States in the 1940s and ’50s, when the trend was to replace American ghettos with “projects,” high-rises that frequently became dens of crime. In the States, the plan has been abandoned. I wondered how it would turn out here, in a country notorious for political corruption where the money attached to grand plans often ends up in individuals’ pockets.

  My taxi ran the gauntlet between miles of banner wavers, each paid fifty reais, thirty-five dollars, to stand and wave a banner for eight hours that advertised a political candidate. It was about the chance to earn a little money, not about impassioned support. Given the history of post-colonial Brazilian politics, it’s not hard to see why most voters seemed so apathetic. In the last two centuries, since independence from the Portuguese, Brazil has seen a monarchy, civilian presidents put in place and propped up by the military, an oppressive military dictatorship, and, only recently, twenty-five years of democracy, which is to say elected presidents largely coming from one of two parties, though there are others, and from the wealthy elite. Almost none of these governments would have given the ordinary man on the street the sense that he had any meaningful input. However, this particular election was especially interesting to me because there was a woman running for president who looked as though she might actually win. I was impressed that this macho country might elect a woman before the United States did.

  The election was the next day. There, in Maceió, were miles of turquoise banners for Teotonio Vilela Filho, the incumbent governor (and son of a former senator); then miles of red, white, and blue stripes for Ronaldo Lessa, his adversary. Zeca had said Lessa couldn’t serve even if he won. Apparently, after his last term as governor, he was convicted of embezzling, and a law was passed prohibiting politicians who had committed crimes in office from ever serving again. Evidently, Lessa was appealing this and blithely moving forward with considerable support.

  “If you can’t look past the financial crimes of Brazilian politicians,” Giovanni had observed at one of my lessons, “you will have no one to vote for.”

  Having read an article in The Economist touting the accomplishments of the president then in office, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, known fondly as Lula, I was curious to hear what people here thought of him, and of his hand-picked successor, Dilma Rousseff, whose future would be decided the next day. If elected, she would be Brazil’s first female president. Lula stood out because he had come from both a working-class family and from the northeast, from Pernambuco, the next state over. His party was the labor party, and he was credited with having made significant strides in defending the rights of workers and increasing social programs for the poor. But even his government had been weighed down with accusations of corruption. Not everyone was a fan.

  “Lula is just stealing money from hardworking people and giving it to people too preguiçoso—lazy—to work!” My taxi driver was gesticulating wildly, both hands off the wheel, he was so furious. He was referring to Lula’s Bolsa Família, a welfare program that provides up to sixty-five dollars a month to poor families. Not enough, as my next taxi driver pointed out, to support a family, but better than nothing.

  So what of Dilma Rousseff ? My first taxi driver hadn’t liked her either.

  “Ela era [something I couldn’t understand] terrorista,” and he mimed pulling a trigger. True enough. In the 1970s, she’d been part of a radical socialist group that promoted armed uprising against the military dictatorship then in power. I’d thought that might be seen as heroic, but apparently not.

  At the beach the next day, election day, we asked our surfing instructor, Disraelle, who he was voting for. He gave the response we’d heard most often: “Estou indeciso . . .”—I’m undecided. They’re all robbers. With that, he sprinted back down to the water, arms swinging wide as if to embrace the ocean before narrowing above his head for a dive into the foaming water. Magically, he popped up two waves out, took a few powerful strokes, and caught a wave back in, twirling with a forestroke and backstroke, like an eggbeater being propelled into shore. He could vote later. Clearly this was his natural habitat and would continue to be, regardless of who won at the polls.

  Those waves still break jade green and frothy white, as I imagine they have for millennia, watching the Dilmas come and go. Our lives are small in the scheme of time. The waves remind us of that.

  Reluctant to leave, we finally dragged our collection of small bags to the empty lot where we’d caught our first van to Penedo three months before. No regular vans were available. They were needed to transport voters.

  “But we can take you for two hundred reais,” said a man relaxing by an unmarked one. “You can have the whole van to yourself. Two hours.”

  We tossed our bags onto the seats and chose places out of the fifteen empty possibilities.

  It didn’t take us long to clear town. We’d picked up a police officer who had been an election monitor and was allowed to ride for free. Apparently, his presence liberated the driver from any of the restrictions from speed limits that he might have felt otherwise.

  The ride was that visceral, interactive experience that Brazilian public transport is. In the United States, I once saw words on the back of a T-shirt: “You know you’re driving in Nicaragua if: the driver ignores the lane markings on the road; the driver passes near the crest of the hill; the driver speeds up for the curves; cars drive three abreast on a two-lane road.” Substitute Brazil, I thought.

  I was glad for the handle on the side of the seat in front of me. It grounded me when I found myself airborne, literally, from high-speed bumping through potholes. It also helped me brace for the curves that sent the rosary dangling from the rearview mirror out to a forty-five-degree angle. I swiveled in my seat to point out an enormous cross, constructed of wrecked cars, five high and three across. It marked a police checkpoint. I saw a roadside plaque in the shape of a black coffin with words in white saying, “Quantas vidas são necessárias . . .”—How many lives are necessary—but we were past before I could read the rest.

  At that moment, I could have panicked and prayed our lives weren’t about to join the list, but somehow, in these situations, I never do. I find it
quite easy, almost a relief, to relinquish control. I’m not normally a person who likes being out of control. But I think, in situations like this, where I have little choice, I find it easier to give myself over to chance. Instead of gritting my teeth at every lurching turn, I rather enjoyed it, like a ride at the fair.

  Two hours it was, right to our doorstep. Two hundred reais it wasn’t. “É trezentos!”—Three hundred! the driver argued vehemently.

  “Who heard him say two hundred?” Peter demanded.

  “I did,” I blurted. But then, did I? In another language, it was so hard to be sure.

  We relented, feeling burned but too tired to really care. Hitching our bags through our narrow front door, we were happy to be home.

  20

  Hitting the Wall

  MY CELL PHONE RANG. It was November 7—Zeca’s birthday!

  Peter had left before dawn to walk down to the baixa with his soccer pals and catch the bus to Pernambuco for a game. The rest of us had been quietly reading in the garden room.

  “Yah, hello. So, if you want to come to the party . . . people are coming now . . . I can send a car. I can’t come. You know it is my birthday, so . . . I haf to be here . . .”

  “Zeca, that’s okay, we can get there,” I said hurriedly. I hung up and went to wrap our birthday present, some framed photos I’d taken of Zeca playing tennis. I asked Molly and Skyler to sign the back.

  “Does that look bad? Oh, that’s bad,” Skyler said of his signature. In retrospect, that seems to have been the trigger. As Molly and I changed, Skyler lay on the sofa in his boxer shorts.

  “I don’t want to go.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t want to.”

  “Well, I think Zeca has been really nice to you, and you owe it to him to at least show up at his birthday party. We’re ready to leave.” I was frustrated. “I’ll give you five minutes.” I could feel myself beginning to overreact. These sudden mood reversals were so hard to take, especially when my hopes had risen, when he had seemed more at peace with himself.

  In the end, Skyler dragged out the door behind us, we crossed the praça and managed to catch a bus. A mile and a half down the road, we jumped out and began the short, hot trek to Robson’s house. There, the freestanding houses were largely invisible behind walls rimmed with broken glass or electrified wires, and the streets, which in our neighborhood were normally full of people, were empty.

  “I’m just a bad person,” Skyler said.

  “You’re not a bad person. You’re just a little moody these days. Adolescent hormones.”

  “Adolescent?”

  “Yeah, teenage. I have the same thing. That’s why you see premenopausal women crying all the time. You’re moving into it; I’m moving out of it.”

  Skyler was slowing down. Stopping. “What is there to like about Brazil?”

  “Okay, do you want me to answer you seriously? Can you listen seriously? This is what I think. I think the people here are exceptionally open and gracious, the place is beautiful, the history interesting, there’s surfing, capoeira . . .” I went on and on, the floodgates open, four months of patience shoved aside as words tumbled out. By this time, we were stalled against a wall.

  “I can’t do this!” Now tears rolled down Skyler’s cheeks.

  “Okay, I’m going.” Molly stalked off.

  I felt bad for Skyler. For him to cry meant he was having a really hard time, and I knew he couldn’t just figure out why and change it. At the same time, it was draining to boost him up.

  “Skyman.” I put my arm around him. “Robson’s house is right around the corner. Go to the end of this street and turn right. We’ll walk slowly. Come when you feel ready.”

  Around the corner, I rejoined Molly. We stopped and waited by an empty lot, full of weeds and trash, next to Robson’s house. There seemed to be no zoning in Penedo. Large, beautiful houses were plunked down next to tire shops. The sidewalk was crumbling into sand.

  Skyler appeared at the corner, bright in his red T-shirt, slumped in his spine. We waited until he caught up. Tears still trickled down his face.

  “Now I look like I’ve been crying.”

  I smiled, put my hands on his shoulders, and looked into his face.

  “No, you don’t. You look fine. That’s the beauty of youth. Those things disappear.”

  Eventually, we managed to enter Robson’s yard.

  “Oh, this place!” Skyler exclaimed. “I remember this place. It’s really fun.” Bang! We’d made it through another of his daily swings, whether because he was basically resilient and would pull himself together when something promising showed up, or because the daily testosterone flushes had hit another part of their cycle, I didn’t know.

  We wandered through an opening in a wall that connected two parts of the rambling house into the covered arcade behind. The women were seated there, resting from their kitchen labors, tending to toddlers, cooling off in the breeze. A row of songbirds in cages swung gently above their heads. Out back under an arbor of bougainvillea, we found Zeca in aviator sunglasses, cigarette in one hand, glass of beer in the other.

  “Do I look like Johnny Knoxville from Jackass?” he asked, grinning.

  “Yeah, kind of. Yeah, I can see it, the glasses.” Molly, our in-house expert on American pop culture, saved me again.

  Robson pulled me into a hug. “Tudo bom?” He was a handsome man, George Clooney’s Brazilian twin, with cropped salt-and-pepper hair, lively eyes, and a quick smile.

  All the usual suspects were there: Zeca’s dad, the uncles (he had seven on his mother’s side), and some friends. A man was playing a guitar while the others robustly sang along, led by Jacaré, a short, stocky guy, energetically rocking side to side in his folding chair. Skyler and Molly were spirited away by the young cousins. Hours later, Skyler reappeared, bare feet black with dirt. “How do you say Ghosts in the Graveyard?” he asked, wanting to teach this old camp game. We settled on “Fantasmas de Cemitério.” He ran off to explain the rules, and they scattered once again.

  “This song gets me in the fetoo. How do you say it? Fetoo?” Zeca was indicating his low belly.

  “Fetus?” I offered.

  “Yeah.” Zeca punched his fist high in the air. “This song gets me in the fetus,” he shouted. It occurred to me as his voice reached full volume that he had probably meant “in the gut.”

  I helped myself to a plate of grilled meat, beans, vinagrete (chopped tomatoes and onions), and farofa (coarse manioc meal sautéed in butter). It was peaceful under the arbor, with all the boisterous singing, kids swinging in and out of sight, chickens and nursing dogs rummaging around in the dirt, and plates of food constantly appearing for informal grazing.

  Zeca’s mom waved me to a chair on one side of the arcade. “. . . é mais ventilado.” Molly was there, chatting with a young cousin, a slender fourteen-year-old with her hot pink blouse falling off one shoulder, a popular look.

  I ended up passing the afternoon chatting with aunts and cousins, wandering down the road to buy freshly baked buns, eventually being invited to help chop hot dogs into leftover vinagrete for a six o’clock snack. In the evening, I wandered out into the dark backyard to check on Skyler, who had been happily climbing trees. He reported gleefully, “This is soooo funny. You know, Zeca’s really drunk, so he’s swearing a lot! You know, like, ‘This is my fucking birthday.’ So I wanted to say, ‘Porra’”—a common Brazilian swear word—“but I didn’t want to do it in front of all his uncles, so I yelled, ‘Sperm!’”—the literal translation that Zeca had given us—“and then Zeca yelled, ‘Sperm!’ and we were both yelling, ‘Sperm!’”

  It made me soar to see Skyler so happy and Molly so content.

  I, too, felt content and wondered why, in the United States, I always felt so restless. I thought of the large family parties at Peter’s mom’s around the Fourth of July. There, similarly, lots of aunts and uncles and cousins would lounge on her lawn by a lake; lots of beer would go down.
But I always felt there was something I should be doing. In Brazil, I didn’t have a lot of demands on my time in general, so six hours wiled away didn’t seem a waste, and I could fulfill my need for accomplishment simply by trying to speak Portuguese. But the ease also came simply from the aura of contentment that Brazilians exude, like a great quilt that makes you just want to curl up and sleep.

  “It seems like every time I have a good day, the next day’s a bad one,” Skyler observed the following Sunday.

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed that,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact rather than accusatory. I stood by the white tile counter in the kitchen, blending milk and packets of Skyler’s favorite acerola cherry juice in the liquidificador.

  The previous day had been fabulous. Skyler had come back in the middle of the day bouncing with excitement about how he, Victor, Ricardo, and Paulinho had all done tons of back flips (we’re talking seventy-five to a hundred) off some piles of construction sand.

  “Mom, next time you have to come with the camera. We were all in the air at the same time.”

  They’d zipped through the house, devoured the passion-fruit popsicles, used and strewn all our glasses around the kitchen, and promptly left again—for another four hours of flipping, off walls, in grassy praças, anywhere they could find, all around town.

  Molly had had a good day, too. School friends had invited her to go to Piaçabucu, a town thirty minutes away. “They said I should pack some clothes in case I stay overnight,” she’d said with delight as she rushed out the door.