From My Notebooks In 1974: Andrade’s Story

Rio, August

The police station in Fortaleza where I was locked up has become (25 years later) a cultural centre after many cosmetic changes. It used to bristle with antennae.

[My imprisonment/detention in Fortaleza was Kafkaesque, in the sense that I was locked up in an office where, during the day, all normal office procedures took place. There was a plump young blonde secretary at one desk, and the head of a drug squad (Toxicos) at another. A handful of agents, three or four men, one woman, hung around waiting for a call. I watched them all from my place, standing at the wall. There was only rarely a spare chair. If I wandered too far from the wall a fierce older agente pushed me back. Otherwise, they all behaved as though I didn’t exist. At the end of the office day the desks were locked and pushed to the wall. Everyone went home. The door was locked and I was left for the night with a pile of three straw mattresses. The first days were the worst, when I really thought they might do away with me. The atmosphere got gradually easier, and in the second week when it seemed most probable that eventually I would be freed the female agent, who spoke reasonable English, began to talk with me. It was then that a young shipping clerk was locked up with me and, the following night, we first made the acquaintance of a lawyer named Andrade. I wrote his story into my notebook much later, when I was in Rio. This is exactly how I wrote it.]

ANDRADE’S STORY

He looked utterly defeated when I first saw him, and all the more pathetic because he was so well dressed and groomed and obviously accustomed to comfort and respect. Superintendent Xavier brought him in one evening, saying “You can stay here, if you like, but you can’t converse with these,” meaning us, the clerk from Maranäo and me.

Andrade mumbled something about not needing company, and they left the room. It was his mouth I remember most. It seemed to have imploded, and his head looked like a tin full of steam after it had condensed.

Where he spent the night I don’t know, but the following day, a Saturday, he was back looking more controlled. For me, who was living in a regulated squalor, he was a phenomenon. He had his hammock, a new looking, brightly coloured affair, which he slung across a corner of the room. Unlike us, he had obviously been forewarned. We didn’t speak for a while, but eventually we were talking quite freely. [But only in Portuguese which I was gradually picking up.]

We played two games of chess with the cardboard pieces on a board drawn on the back of a large brown envelope. He had already told his story to the clerk, but it went too fast for me, and I persuaded him to tell it again slowly. I don’t know how he managed it, but he conveyed to me a vivid picture of the main event which was the beginning of the tale.

It seems that in some way the brother of the Governor of Såo Paulo had betrayed or slandered him, and he came to the Governor’s palace to protest and receive satisfaction. He charged the brother to his face with his slimy behaviour, and the brother replied in terms which Andrade could not tolerate. He therefore gave the brother a punch on the nose. Th brother then drew a gun and Andrade fell sprawling on the marble floor with a bullet through his calf. However, as he lay on his back, propped up on his left elbow he was able to draw his own gun and he shot the brother once in each shoulder and once through the leg. Andrade pulled up his trouser leg to reveal a whitish shin. On the right side halfway down was a scar like a halfpenny. On the back of the calf was another. The scars gave him great satisfaction. He said that, as a result of this incident, he was unable to make a satisfactory living in Såo Paulo. He lost his job as a lawyer in the state government, and doors were closed to private practice. He was said to have been politically undesirable. [The shooting occurred in 1964 after the military coup.]

In 1970 he left S.P. and came to Céara, a sufficient distance away to outrun the slanders. In Fortaleza he built up a new reputation, became involved in the creation of important enterprises (water treatment, Parque de Pais?) Then he became associated with the director of Larousse for Céara, and was instrumental in making it the most successful branch of the business in Brazil. The HQ was in Såo Paulo and in 1973 he was suddenly dismissed, just before Christmas. The principals refused to see him, and he decided not to take any action for loss of earnings, etc. Some months later his former boss in Céara was also dismissed and accused of fraud. This man invited Andrade to help him prepare a case against Larousse, but in the meanwhile, A had discovered that it was his boss, whom he had considered to be his greatest friend, who had denounced him to Såo Paulo as a swindler. A instead gave evidence for the firm against his boss.

Now he himself had been arrested and told that a criminal process begun against him years ago in S.P. had been to trial and he had been convicted in his absence and sentenced to five years. He was now waiting to be sent to prison in S.P. He seemed quite without hope.

That evening his son, a young man in the expensive casual clothing that rich sons wear in Brazil, came with pieces of roast chicken on a plate with a cloth knotted over it, and a bag of other odds and ends. They embraced and talked. A left the room and came back into the room bouncing with optimism, smiling broadly. His son and his friends had discovered that there had never been a judgement against him, after all. The whole thing was a wicked lie disseminated by his enemies. The truth would emerge and he would be free again.

I found it as difficult to believe now in the rosy future he painted as I had been to share in the black despair of a short while earlier. But because he was so exhilarated, I congratulated him heartily and pretended to share in the wonder of it all.

What we were experiencing, however, seemed a long way from what I could accept as reality, like his keen earlier interest in ways of escaping from the police station. [He said that compared with the prison in S.P. this was very easy: I wondered how he knew, but didn’t ask him.]

The euphoria lasted for a day, through Sunday. On Monday morning I saw them, he and the clerk, standing oddly near the wall with the sun in their faces, as though they would be lucky to see it again. He was taken to other offices, and I didn’t speak to him again. I saw him though when he came to collect his hammock and other things, and his face had once more collapsed into bitter dejection.

When I got out myself Mario [a priest] brought me a newspaper which described how Supt. Xavier had winkled this crooked lawyer Andrade out of Fortaleza High Society and sent him packing to S.P. where he had been sentenced for various frauds.

Much later, looking at a map of Såo Paulo, I was surprised by the large number of streets named after different men all bearing the name Andrade.

The heat is getting to me. I dread to think of the future. Isn’t it Kafka all over again that at a time like this a stony-faced villain makes us waste our wealth on munitions.

Another dive into the relative innocence of the past next week.

From My Notebooks In 1974: An Ex President In Rio

Still enjoying the luxuries of Rio de Janeiro, making the most of my very highly connected friends. I have been waiting for a chance to talk to an Ex President.

August 2nd

Finally had meeting with Kubitschek. Mild mannered man, surprisingly un-monstruous. In fawn suit. Flat featured, grey-eyed, a faded tan colour. With him was a stocky fellow in casual academic disarray suitable to middle-aged professor of economics at Rutgers University, N.J. His calling card smelled strongly of pipe tobacco and announced him as Robert Alexander. K and I spoke French, which Alexander, it later transpired, hardly understood.

I said I had not been able to locate the “centre of gravity” of Brazil. Of course I meant by that an area of consensus on what values the country as a whole should be guided by, and a debate on what methods were mot suitable. He chose to take me more literally and retold history since the Vargas dictatorship (1930-45). Described his own accession, as Governor of Minas Gerais, in the face of great pressure from three separate military bodies, Army, Air Force, Navy, which he resisted with his own loyal police force (30,000 men?) The story of the founding of Brasilia was more picturesque, according to Marcia. At a meeting in Goias he was posed the question: “If you insist on following the constitution to the letter, then you are presumably going to build Brasilia. His response was an immediate and intuitive YES.”

His successor, he says, was a fool and a disaster who was committed to Communists. The military intervention was welcomed by the people, who didn’t realise it was there to stay. Now, he says, there is no foreseeable end to it, and it is a terrible police state.

SUDENI – organisation begun in K’s time to generate some prosperity in the interior, with roads and dams.

Alexander says one thing. Before K Brazil was a nation of pessimists. After K they believed in Brazil and it’s future. K is the most important Brazilian of the Twentieth Century.

August 11th

During past week:

Visited Jill at her home [who was Jill?]

Saw Bloch’s production of “Pippin”. [A musical. Bloch owned major newspaper “O Globo.”]

Dined with Kubitschek, Bloch, ex-Governor of Rio, etc.

Wrote and posted 1st half of Brazil article.

Spent afternoon on beach with Baby, Dalal, and Lulu.

First researches into route through South America:

IGUAÇU described in guide as greater than either Victoria Falls or Niagara. Perhaps best to go into Argentina there and miss Paraguay. See falls from Argentina.

Take road to Posadas through Missiones Province and see remains of early Jesuit missions – San Ignacio, – Corrientes across Parana to Resistencia – via Santa Fé, Rosario to Buenos Aires.

Across Pampa to Bahia Blanca – Neuquen – Bariloche. Lake district, glaciers, mountains, etc. Lake Nahuel Huapi.

Across Andes to Osorno (mostly paved) Up Highway to Santiago. Back into Argentina to Cordoba. North through Salta to Bolivia. Road from Bolivian border at La Quiaca to La Paz is rough but passable in dry weather (up to November.)

From La Paz round Lake Titicaca into Peru to Puno. Then on Central Andean Highway to Cuzco – and Macchu Picchu. From Cuzco there’s a road S.W. down to PanAmerican Highway at Nazcar, but no information about it. The Andian route to Lima is described as very bad and with the precipices on the wrong side.

Rough estimate of times:

1 month from Rio to B. A (including stays.) 1 month from B.A. to Salta. 1 month from Salta to Panama.

August 12th

Began my efforts to release the wheel from customs. [The front wheel was damaged by my various falls. Meriden offered to replace it. I don’t recall why in Rio where customs were notoriously difficult.]

Marcia asks Geraldo who sends me to the despachante Ivan. He passes me off to a ‘convalescent’ who appears to understand that it must be done quickly and that I must know what it will cost. The whole week went by without my knowing anything at all and finally on Friday I was asked to sign forms and pay a ridiculous 2000 cruzeiros. I refused and called Brasilia.

[After my detention in Fortaleza the Foreign Ministry tried to make amends, inviting me to Brasilia. and offering assistance if I needed it.]

Next Monday the whole process will have to begin again, and hopefully Ivan and his merry men won’t feel obliged to obstruct it out of spite. The money story also continued – since I went to the bank without my passport and although the dollars are now available, I couldn’t have them. Eventually collected on Friday.

Nixon’s resignation has sent the dollar up from 6.5 to 7 and it may go higher.

Next week: The Saga of Andrade.

From My Notebooks In 1974: Travelling with Lulu

The beautiful chapel at Congoñas. The apostles stroll around outside.

Still in Rio, travelling around with Lulu but dealing with a consequence of my prison diet. This is not for the squeamish.

July 20th

Went to visit Lulu’s grandmother in Vassouras, about 75 km inland from Rio. Countryside hilly. No level land at all. River Paraibo.

We visited a colonial house preserved as a museum. It used to be occupied by a rich spinster who was in love with a Parisian couturier (so it is said) but was forbidden to marry him. The house has a simple, almost flimsy appearance from the outside to a European eye, being made of wood with little concern for keeping out non-existent storms and freezing weather. The rooms are arranged around a patio – big rooms, beautiful floors and imported furniture (oak chairs commissioned in large quantities). There were papers and exercise books in a cupboard – essays in French and English, copied out painstakingly. The newspapers were of mid-nineteenth century – with classified advertisements for slaves. One was selling a 12-year-old, suitable to receive caresses. Another asked for information about a runaway girl, describing her mannerisms – holds her head on one side – looks two months pregnant.

July 22nd

[For some time since the rice and beans of Fortaleza I had been suffering from unpleasant symptoms up my arse.]

Day dominated by appointment with doctor. Adolfo Milech, Youngish man with merry conversational manner. Face connects with Slav name. Strong “Punch” nose, wide full mouth on flat plane of face. Surgery on 4th floor of big block in Copacabana. Ground floor a labyrinth of split levels, escalators, glass shop windows, 4th floor wood panelled corridors, like discreet tunnels, Receptionist a smart but motherly woman about 40 knitting behind small desk in a cube-shaped space, with small pieces of reproduction furniture.

The doctor chatted happily about his dissatisfaction with censorship and repression [Remember: Brazil was a police state.] He didn’t like it since living in the States. It’s hard sometimes to resist the impression that these opinions are offered to pre-empt like criticism from foreigners (as in South Africa.) Unfair probably.

The business wasn’t too humiliating, thanks to his recognition.

July 24th

Hospital for rectal examination, Santa Casa de Misericordia – built as hospital 200 years ago. New one with 400 beds going up now near airport. As a building though this one is much more inviting than English Victorian hospitals. Several doctors involved in process – four plus Milech. The examination was very uncomfortable, verging on pain – or at least a sort of abdominal sensation which is intolerable (though pain is not really the word.) I was surprised at the location of the feeling near the front of my belly, and only understood it when I saw the length of the stainless steel tube used to conduct the light and the instruments (about 12”). Went on a bit too long. They found internal hemorrhoid which I’ve apparently had for some time (Huh!) and much inflamation. They pulled out some shit to examine – with shouts of triumph (“Teng fes!”) for parasites. But again their good humour saves the situation. The specialist wore tight-fitting long-sleeved polo-necked vest and groovily flared white trousers, but revealed loose flesh falling over his waist band. All of them had white shoes.

Friday July 26th

Drive to Buzios [A very fashionable resort on the coast north of Rio. Because of the way the coast curls round you can watch the sun setting over the Atlantic.]

Drive North up the coast over the Niteroi bridge (10crz) Passed salt business, long wooden shacks with tiled roofs for storing salt. Men raking it out in heaps. Windmills to pump sea water from lagoon. Shrimps on slivers of bamboo (6crz a 100) for 1 or 2 crz each. Eat them whole (headless) with lime juice.

Buzios was small fishing village – whole area owned by two families. One has big house on it’s own small beach. Other has new house on other side of Buzios. Buzios itself has a dozen or so smart bldgs and one or two original cottages. White plastered brick, rough hewn posts 8” square, from eucalyptus. Often a lot of wind. Many other small beaches. Bardot came here a while ago, got the fashion under way. Very expensive now. Lulu has bit of land 15 X 60 metres on other side of peninsula – worth £10,000 now.

Michael Sarne [Sixties pop idol] has house in Buzios. Passed me on beach, smiling, but I didn’t recognise him. An elderly friend of Lulu’s lives further round the beach. Travels a lot. Only once had an English lover. Met him at Moet & Chandon chateau. After they’d made love she said she was surprised how good he was. He was the “unique Anglais de ma vie.” He replied, with heavy English accent, “Ne soyez pas ridicule.”

There’s also a Miss McGregor, widow of a man who used to go to the office every day leaving her enough money each week to maintain their modest house. She had no idea what he did at the office. When he died she asked the lawyer, timidly, whether he thought she could afford a visit to relatives in England. He regarded her with astonishment. It turned out he owned the “Light Company” in Rio [All of Rio’s electricity.] “Madam, you can do anything you like,” he said. It was a complete surprise to her that she had become a ‘milliardaire.’ Now she leads a totally and unselfconsciously lavish life in Buzios.

There’s more about all this in the book, of course, including my problems with Hemingway. Next week, my meeting with Kubitschek.