Immediately behind the Abre-Alas comes a huge float stating the literary theme of Guarnieri’s presentation. On the slowly moving truck invisible beneath the float is a mammoth book open for all to see the letters G.R.E.S. GUARNIERI (Gremio Recreativo Escola de Samba Guarnieri). It is desired that the spectator know that it is of history that the school portrays, a kind of written, authoritative history, which may be a kind of joke, too, or an exaggeration, as there is very little authoritative, written history.
Then comes the Comissão de Frente, a line of formally dressed men doing a strolling samba. It is desired that the spectators accept these aging sambistas, honored for their contributions to past Carnival Parades, chosen for their grace and dignity, as the samba school’s board of directors. Few, if any, actually are directors. The real directors are working hard in the school’s parade, all sides of it at once. The presentation-dancers, drummers, floats on trucks and flatbeds, floats that are pushed by hand—must move at exactly one mile an hour, without gaps or holes, keeping the balances of colors and movements perfect.
Behind this line of dignitaries comes the first and most distinguished dancing couple, the Porta Bandeira and the Mestre Sala, the Flag Bearer and the Room, or Dancing Master. These are mature people, in their prime, dressed in lavish eighteenth-century costumes regardless of the theme, those decided by everyone in the favela to be absolutely the best dancers, those dancers everyone else most enjoys watching. Their dance step is incredibly complicated, to most people an incomprehensible wonder, with patterns within patterns, movements within movements. They too must move forward in their dancing at exactly one mile per hour. And while she dances, the lady of the couple must carry a flag, the samba school’s emblem on one side, the symbol of that year’s theme on the other side, waving it so that both sides are visible to everyone.
It is obligatory that every person in the parade, every dancer, dignitary, drummer, director working or parading must constantly be singing the samba enredo, the song presented by that school that year, as loudly and as well, as continuously, as he or she can.
As the Alas come by, the theme of the school’s presentation becomes more and more clear, however broad the theme may be. An ala is a group of hundreds of vigorously dancing people identically dressed depicting some aspect of the theme. Here one Ala is costumed as Indians from the Amazon Basin, dancing steps suggestive of that cultural area. Another ala is again of plantation life, the costumes modified, of course, so that the beauty of the people of that favela, their flesh and movement, the joy of the dancers’ bodies may be revealed and enjoyed by all.
In among the alas come the Figuras de Destaque, the prominent figures which relate to the theme, in this case mythically huge figures of Amazonian plumed birds and monkeys.
All these groups cross in front of the bateria of drummers filling the air with sound in the bull pen.
In da Costa’s box, Jetta in particular wilts. Her greatly abbreviated costume of a Foreign Legionnaire looks hot and heavy over her breasts and hips. Her back leans against a stanchion. Her chin is on her chest. Her eyes are open, watching, but glazed.
The most important obligatory Ala of any presentation is that which honors the earliest history of the samba parade in Rio de Janeiro. After the drought of 1877, women who had emigrated from Bahia danced slowly down the main street of Rio in their long white gowns on the Sunday before Lent, inviting the men to join them, as they had done in Salvador. So here comes the Ala das Baianas, scores of older women, usually the blackest in the favela, dressed, dancing in the flowing white robes of Bahia.
The passistas cause the greatest excitement and appreciation. Young people from the favela, the youngest fully formed, girls and boys, the most beautiful and most handsome, clearly the most athletic, as near naked as possible without being cumbersomely nude, dance down the parade route together acrobatically, tumbling, doing cartwheels, climbing each other, leaping off, being caught by others a centimeter before disaster, all the while singing, of course, doing all this in a choreography so intricate, so closely timed it has taken them the full year to study it, learn it, practice it. Some of the young men may have developed a capoeira routine which is so graceful while so vicious, so rife with genuine danger, that the sight of it might stop the spectator’s heart if the drums weren’t controlling the heart, keeping it going.
Adrian Fawcett says something to Fletch.
Fletch yells, “What?” but cannot hear even his own voice.
Adrian cups his hands over Fletch’s ear and yells with his full voice, virtually taking a full breath to blow out each word: “Think if all this energy, planning, work, skill the year ‘round went into revolution instead!”
Fletch nods that he heard him.
Interspersed among the alas, a few alegorias have passed, huge floats depicting scenes from the Amazon, one a section of jungle bejeweled by women in G-strings suggesting plumed birds in their tall, bright, feathered headpieces; slim boys-men with the heads of snakes slithering over the rocks; children with the heads of monkeys dancing in the trees. Another alegoria depicts an Indian village, live fire centering thatched huts, costumed Indians dancing with mythical fish-headed and monster-headed figures.
In the middle of the presentation comes a small float, a disguised pickup truck, really a sound truck with amplifiers aiming every direction. On the back of the truck-float, dressed formally like a nightclub singer, stands the Puxador de Samba, microphone close to mouth, singing over and over at fullest personal volume, belting out the lyrics of the samba school’s song for that year:
Like the Amazon flows our history,
Deep, mysterious and wide,
Of many brooks and streams,
Magically providing us with life.
After a few more alas does the bateria begin to pull out of the bull pen and join the parade. An entire army of drummers, perhaps a thousand or more powerful men from the ages of fifteen to whenever, uniformly dressed in dazzling costume, all beating their drums in patterns practiced all year, all singing, all dancing despite the size of their drums, pass by. The sound is overpowering. It is perhaps the maximum sound the earth and sky can accept without cracking, without breaking into fragments to move with it before dissipating into dust.
Near the end of the parade comes the samba school’s principal alegoria. In this case, for Escola Guarnieri that year, a nineteenth-century riverboat slowly comes down the parade route, if not full-sized at least impressively huge—as white, as delicate, as ornate as a wedding cake. Its prow moves majestically down the street high above the heads of the bateria. The bridge is proud in its height. Steam comes from its funnels. The cap of its whistle funnel rises and lowers, and doubtlessly the sound of a steamboat whistle comes out, but so high is the level of sound generally that even a steamboat whistle cannot be heard fifteen meters away. The white, gleaming hull moves by slowly. The mere sight of the upper decks and into the interior cabins and ballroom of the ship instantly creates the feeling of a grander day, grander people, a grander way to travel, to move, to be. Sedately move the side wheels of this riverboat, exactly as if they were thrusting water behind them. And as the riverboat passes, its stern turned up to be high above the final dancing ala behind it, the last to disappear down the stream of swirling costumed dancers and drummers, instant yearning for it fills the heart, the instant and full desire to experience again the passing of this ghost, this alegoria of the past.