They lifted Norival out of the backseat and stood him in the road between Toninho and Orlando.
“Here, Fletch.” Toninho handed Fletch a ball of heavy thread he had taken from Dona Jurema. “Tie Norival’s left ankle to Orlando’s right, his right ankle to my left. See? It will work out. That way, Norival will appear to walk.”
Fletch tied Norival’s left ankle to Orlando’s right.
They lifted Norival a little off the ground on his broomsticks and Orlando walked in a circle around Toninho. Norival’s movement was too slow.
“No, Fletch,” Toninho said, “the line must be tighter. Norival must appear to be taking the same size steps as Orlando.”
Kneeling on the wet road, Fletch retied the thread tighter, and then tied Norival’s right ankle to Toninho’s left.
Somewhere in the harbor, a ship’s whistle blew.
Toninho and Orlando walked Norival up the road a little way. “How do we look, Tito?”
“Lift your side higher, Toninho,” Tito said. “His foot is dragging a little, your side.”
Toninho hitched Norival higher. “That better?”
“Perfect,” Tito said. “You’d never know he’s dead.”
“Fine. Then we should go. See you at the beach in a few hours, Tito. Here, Fletch, you walk a little in front of us, in case things do not look exactly right.”
Slowly, in bare feet, Fletch walked down the rain-slicked road and up onto the sidewalk toward the gate to the boat dock. Each pocket of his shorts was bulging with a wad of cruzeiros he had won at poker.
He could not help looking around.
Eyes beaming in complete joy, arms stiff at his sides, although his shoulders propped up by broomsticks did look a little high, Norival walked almost in step between Toninho and Orlando. Three close friends going down the street together. The harness kept Norival’s head high.
Norival did trip going up the curb.
Down the road, Tito was driving the car away.
The three guards watched the four young men approach.
“Boa noite,” Fletch said to them.
“Boa noite,” they answered lowly, suspiciously.
Fletch stood aside.
“Ah, Doctor Passarinho!” One guard threw away his cigarette.
Again the conversation was in Portuguese.
Fletch kept looking up at the heavy, scudding clouds, hoping the moon would not take that moment to appear.
Guard: “You are not going out on your boat tonight, are you?”
Toninho answered in his normal voice, not even trying to conceal the movement of his lips. “Yes. Rio is so crowded. From Carnival. I need some peace and quiet.”
Orlando took a few steps in his circle so that the faces of Norival and Toninho were turned a bit away from the guards.
Guard: “But there has been a heavy rain! It might rain again!”
Toninho/Norivaclass="underline" “That will help keep the sea calm.”
Guard: “They say the wind will come up.”
Toninho/Norivaclass="underline" “Yes, well, I feel like a vigorous sail.”
Second guard: “You look uncommonly happy, Doctor Passarinho.”
Toninho/Norivaclass="underline" “I think I have met the love of my life.”
Guard: “That will do it.”
Toninho/Norivaclass="underline" “Yes. I doubt I will ever love anyone else.”
Third guard (inside gate): “Ah, to be in love! To be young and in love! You look so happy, Doctor Passarinho!”
Guard: “But if you go sailing now, you will be missing the parties! The grand balls! How can there be Carnival parties without the Tap Dancers?”
Orlando: “No. Only Norival is going sailing. Because he is so stuck in love, you see. We came just to see him off. We will swim ashore. Off Copacabana.”
Second guard: “I understand everything perfectly. He is in love…. From the stiff way he walks, I should say he should not be with the young lady just now….”
Guard: “Is that it? Ah! I see! So Doctor Passarinho, even though it is the middle of the night during Carnival, goes sailing!”
Third guard: “What a man!”
Guard: “What a gentleman!”
Toninho/Norivaclass="underline" “Something like that.”
Guard: “Norival Passarinho must do what is best, for himself and his young lady!” He signaled the guard inside to open the gate. “What consideration!”
Orlando and Toninho marched Norival through the gate. True, Norival did walk as if he suffered one of the more virulent social diseases.
Fletch fell in behind them.
Toninho/Norivaclass="underline" “Obrigado! Boa noite!”
Aboard, Orlando removed the sail covers and had the mainsail up in almost no time at all.
Toninho released the bow line and gathered it in.
As soon as the mainsail caught wind, Fletch, at the tiller, released the stern line and, letting it trail in the water, took in the main sheet.
Facing aft in the cockpit, Norival beamed delightedly at his friends taking him sailing.
While Orlando was running up the jib, Toninho came aft and took the tiller. “I know the harbor,” he said. “We do not want to run into someone’s boat in the dark while one of us is dead.”
Fletch gathered in the stern line. “Not in the S.S. Coitus Interruptus.”
The moon came out.
In the moonlight, Norival’s whole face beamed. But when the boat heeled, he fell over sideways.
“Can’t have him rolling around,” Toninho said. “He might go overboard before we mean him to.”
Fletch relieved Norival of his rope harness and the broomsticks and sat him up in the leeward corner of the cockpit. He tied a light line around his shoulders to a stanchion behind him.
“The things we do for our friends,” Toninho muttered, coming about.
Now Norival was sitting to windward, leaning unnaturally forward as if being seasick. But he was still beaming.
Orlando joined them in the cockpit.
Laughing, then, they translated the conversation with the guards for Fletch. “What a gentleman!” Orlando kept repeating.
Then Orlando said, “Norival loved this little boat.”
At the tiller, Toninho said, “Who’d think Norival would be one to go down with his ship?”
Orlando laughed. “What a gentleman!”
“We’re just about there,” Toninho said.
Ashore, as they came around a point, a car’s headlights went on and off three times.
“Yes!” Toninho said. “There’s Tito. He must see us.”
At first, sailing south in Baia de Guanabara, Fletch had tried to sleep. He lay on the deck, a cushion under his head. He regretted leaving the rest of his mineral water in the car. Despite the drinks he had had, sleep was impossible.
The sky was clear now. The breeze was from the northeast and steady. The little sloop moved nicely through the water.
To starboard, Cidade Maravilhosa, Rio de Janeiro, passed slowly, laid out under the moonlight. There were a few fires on the beach. The street lights, the lights in the tall apartment buildings and hotels along the shore dimmed the stars above. From offshore, the samba drums were heard from all parts of the city in a soft jumble. Like no other city Fletch had seen from such a perspective, Rio has peculiar black holes in its middle, the sides of its cliffs, Morros da Babilonia, de São João, des Cabritos, Pedra dos dois Irmãos, its surprising, irrepressible jungle growth within the city. Above all in the moonlight, arms out in forgiveness, stood the statue of Christ the Redeemer.
At some point, sitting in the cockpit opposite Norival, Orlando had said, “We will have to go to Canecão Ball.”
“Yes,” Toninho said. “However late.”
“We will have to find the Passarinhos,” Orlando said, “and say that Norival went sailing.”