Samba_Dreamers__-__Chapter 1___(excerpt)


A large fern covered my view. Slowly I moved the greenery aside. There, I saw my first Amazon: large, her skin painted with black genipapo dye. The long wound on her shoulder, smeared with balsam, opened slightly as she prepared her bow. A twine belt around her waist cut into her thick flesh. A magnificent cluster of purple flowers dangled from a tree above her. She raised her bow, shot her arrow and brought down a capuchin; she scoffed at its small size and stuffed the poor fellow into a bag made of human hair.
 --- Carta de Carlos Manoel Teixeira da Cunha a João Vicente Cardim da Almeida (Letter from Carlos Manoel Teixeira da Cunha to João Vicente Cardim da Almeida), O Ano 1639

da Cunha, You have let your pen wander, for exploration of a new land brings a fever. To be a part of history, there must be truth to your tales.
   --- A resposta de João Vicente Cardim da Almeida a Carlos Manoel Teixeira da Cunha (Response from João Vicente Cardim da Almeida to Carlos Manoel Teixeira da Cunha), O Ano 1640

O Ano 1975
 
Clouds brushed the wings of the airplane. José Francisco Verguerio Silva looked out the window and suddenly had the feeling of bursting through the glass, tumbling slowly through white heavenly wisps, and finally colliding with the ground, his long Brazilian name smashing into pieces and scattering. He got up to his feet, sobbing as he looked for all the parts of his name, but he had lost them. He filled out the landing card and gave his passport to the airline attendant. Now he was Joe. Joe Silva. It was all the name he had left. BRAZAIR Flight 605 touched down in Los Angeles and shot down the runway. BRAZAIR had filed for bankruptcy, and Joe was on their farewell flight. He clung to the satchel containing small presents bestowed on the passengers by the melancholy but gracious crew: a child's pilot hat, a Tom Jobim cassette tape with his famous "Girl from Ipanema," and a small blue toothbrush. After years of searching his soul, Joe was finally here. The Rio movie premier of Carmen: Você ainda está no meu coracão, dedicated to the memory of the irrepressible Brazilian star Carmen Socorro, had kindled his desire to come to America. Then, with the violent disappearance of his beloved Sonia, his desire burst into flames.

Joe's footsteps creaked on the cold linoleum of the long, wide airport halls, the leather soles of his shoes sticky like a dry tongue. The halls echoed with human noise. He carried his duffle bag and flight satchel past directional signs that seemed vaguely familiar---"Exit," "To Customs," "Baggage Carousel," "Gates 55--79," "Things Go Better with Coke"---as if they had popped out of phrase books. But other signs were brief and cryptic, words cut and censored, other words added. One needed to know these new secret phrases to survive, and Joe didn't know them. He saw people coming toward him, pushing through the airless rooms, getting up from chairs as if suddenly in a hurry, snatching up their belongings. These people whispered to themselves and peered through dark glasses as if their eyes had been gouged. Speaking of gouged eyes! How could Joe not see it coming when Sonia marched up to his newsstand and announced a new love in her life: Ação Popular! The student political movement! She wanted to overthrow the military government, but all he wanted was to marry her. He had waited a long, long time, and now this? But she was not in the mood for love. "Where is the Truth around here?!" she shouted and hurled one of his newspapers onto the floor. "What a bunch of lies! Why do you sell such crap!" He panicked, fearing they would be caught, and pinned her against the corner to kiss her into silence. Her eyes blazed fiercely, half for her love of politics, half for her love for him. His feet dismantled the Jornal do Brasil Sonia had thrown on the floor. He peered down at the sly weather forecast: "Weather is black. Temperature suffocating. The air is unbreathable. The country is being swept by a strong wind. . . ."

Joe struggled to make his way through the airport, clawing through the raw and vivid memories that always blended into his present sadness, as they did now, when the memory of Sonia turned into a craving for biscoito de polvilho, which he knew he would never taste again. Clever cariocas sold these wonders in the bakeries and on the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblom. Dark-legged men and women trekked on the sand and shook rattles as they toted large sacks of biscoitos, selling their wares to toasty sunbathers. Those sacks, though enormous, must have weighed less than ten kilos because a crackly biscoito de polvilho, shaped like a small ring, is no more than crunchy, intricate chambers of air flavored with salt or sugar. Joe imagined these delicious bits of enchantment crumbling in his mouth, a memory that saudade would never let fade.

Joe continued to the front of the terminal to catch some kind of bus. His saudade for home now came furious and fast, not only for the biscoitos, but for the samba and the jangling strains of forró music and hot afternoons spent over a cold beer. He longed now for all the places in Brazil he had neglected. He longed for Iguaçu Falls and its multitude of rainbows, though he'd never been there. He longed for Fortaleza and its sand dunes, though he'd never been there. He longed for Teresina, the hottest place on earth; for the Amazon and the ghosts of lawless bandeirantes haunting the mangrove swamps; for the yellow birds and green frogs; for the Rio Negro and Rio Branco, where he'd never, ever been. He longed for Salvador, where he had gone once as a child---Salvador, with its vendors selling cheap plastic clocks and vinyl wallets and pet roosters tethered to chairs. He imagined his dark-eyed mamãe, with her wavy hair tied in a bun, mouthing something he couldn't pick up, her Portuguese jumbled into the clamor of flight bags and jet engines. He hungered for her black beans and carne seca with farofa and hot sauce sprinkled on top, and he sucked his lower lip.

Outside the terminal, fresh air hit his face, and he felt better. Hotel passenger vans rumbled past like a parade of army tanks. He heard the shrill metal whistles of parking attendants and saw them fling their hands at parked cars. Suitcases on wheels bumped along the cracks of the concrete. Here he was, a carioca in a strange land, a land of lazy rudeness he'd been told. But, oh, he had wanted to come to L.A., he had longed for it---even though Sonia's friends told him that American capitalistic desires were to blame for the military tanks that came rumbling from Minas Gerais to Rio and for the period of unhappiness that followed, the Anos de Chumbo---Years of Lead, as it was called, and now he wore his longing like a splash of ash on his forehead for penance, but most of all for sorrow.