“I think you’re going to have to tell me that there is life after Carnival,” Fletch said.
At the bar table at the back of the box, Teo laughed and handed him a sandwich.
Other people were coming to the back of the box for drinks and sandwiches.
“Does everything become real again?” Fletch asked.
Adrian Fawcett said, “Reality has hunkered down somewhere in my gut, assumed the fetal position, and promises only in whispers to return.”
The sound level had lowered to the merely very loud. Across the parade route, the bateria of Escola Santos Lima was organizing itself in the bull pen.
Jetta put her hand on Fletch’s shoulder. “Are you supposed to be some kind of a present?”
She looked thoroughly sound-struck, sight-struck, mind-blown, and jaded.
He smoothed his bright red sash.
“I’m a present,” Fletch said. “Maybe I’m a past. Maybe I’m a future.”
“And did you come par avion?”
Chewing, Teo said, “Did you and Laura come by subway?”
“Yes, Teo,” Fletch said honestly. “Never have I seen an underground transportation system so modern, so quiet, so clean.”
Dressed like a Christmas package and as an eighteenth-century musician, Fletch and Laura had ridden Rio’s subway to Carnival Parade at Teo’s suggestion. Everyone had told them they could not get a car or a taxi within kilometers of Avenida Marques de Sapucai.
The ten-year-old Janio Barreto had followed Fletch and Laura from The Hotel Yellow Parrot to Avenida Marques de Sapucai.
In the subway station he ducked under the turnstile onto the platform. Fletch thought the underground official saw him, but the man took no notice. Who would keep a wooden-legged boy off public transportation because he had no money? On the train, Janio stood away from them, not looking at them, not speaking to them.
Fletch pointed him out to Laura, briefly told her about him.
She seemed particularly disturbed by being following by a small boy on a wooden leg.
Janio hobbled after them through the dark back streets to the Carnival Parade. At the entrance to the boxes he was stopped. Security was very heavy there, very official. Even with tickets, Fletch and Laura physically had to force, squeeze themselves through the bodies of the guards. They would not let anyone, even or especially a ten-year-old boy on a wooden leg, through the entrance to the boxes without a ticket.
“Yes.” Fletch was aware Teo was watching his face. “A magnificent subway.”
The Italian racing-car driver came to the bar table. “There are some Indians out there calling for you.”
“Me?” Fletch asked.
The racing-car driver jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating the area beyond the box rail.
Laura was dancing in the center of the box with Aloisio da Silva. The heat had caused her leggings to drop over her patent leather shoes.
On the packed earth between the box and the pavement of the parade route stood Toninho Braga, Orlando Velho, and Tito Granja. Again they were dressed as movie Indians. In that light, their shoulders and stomach ridges shone with sweat.
“Jump down!” Toninho shouted.
Fletch put perplexity on his face.
Cupping his hand over his mouth, Orlando shouted, “We need to talk to you!”
“Later!” yelled Fletch.
“About Norival!” shouted Toninho.
Tito waved his arm to encourage Fletch to jump down to them.
Fletch turned around.
Dancing with Aloisio, Laura’s eyes were on Fletch’s face.
Her own face was so expressionless it was unfathomable.
From behind him, Fletch heard the name Janio shouted.
He jumped the three meters from the box down to the Tap Dancers.
Twenty-nine
Toninho clapped Fletch on the shoulder. “You look Brazilian with that red sash. Probably just the way you did fifty years ago.”
“Laura brought it to me from Bahia.”
The four young men walked along the area between the boxes and the parade route.
Fletch said, “I was in a favela this morning. I don’t see how the people in a favela can afford to put on such a presentation, all these drums and costumes and floats.”
“It takes every cruzeiro, and then some,” Toninho said. “By the way, I have lots of your money, your poker winnings, at my apartment. It’s safe there. And dry.”
“Thousands of beautiful costumes,” Fletch mused. “Each must be individually made.”
Tito said, “Everyone in a favela pays dues to the samba school every week. Also, the samba school gets some subsidy from the government for Carnival Parade. It’s good for tourism.”
“The jogo do bicho,” Orlando said. “The jogo do bicho pays a lot.”
“The illegal numbers game,” Toninho said. “The people who run the illegal numbers games give a lot of money to the samba schools for Carnival Parade. It’s their way of giving some of the money back, paying taxes—”
“Because they’ve been stealing from the people all year,” Tito said. “Stealing their false hopes.”
“It’s good public relations for jogo do bicho,” Tito said. “A business expense.”
They had passed two or three of the judges’ viewing towers.
Tito turned around and walked backwards. “Here comes Escola Santos Lima, Janio. Some of your descendants are parading.”
“Escola Santos Lima has the best capoeiristas in all Rio de Janeiro,” Orlando said. “Maybe all Brazil. A huge what-would-you-say squadron of them.”
Toninho held Fletch’s elbow. “Listen. Norival has not appeared.”
“You miscalculated, Toninho. Miscalculated the currents. His body must have been carried out to sea.”
“Not possible. Remember last night when I was swimming ashore? I swam into Norival. That proves that already he was floating toward the beach.”
Against the noise of Carnival Parade the four young men held their heads close together as they walked.
“It would be terrible if Norival were eaten by a shark,” Tito said.
“You don’t see Norival as fish food?” Fletch asked.
“If it looks like he has just disappeared,” Orlando asked practically, “how do we tell his family he is dead?”
“His poor mother,” said Tito.
“His father will be awfully angry,” said Toninho. “And Admiral Passarinho…”
“They will never forgive us for burying Norival at sea without them,” Tito said.
“How would they ever believe us?” asked Toninho.
“You have a problem,” Fletch admitted.
“The tide has been in and out and soon comes in again.” Toninho looked sick. He looked as if the tide, with all its wiggly life, were passing through his own stomach and head.
“What do we do?” Orlando asked.
Fletch said, “Got me.”
“What does that mean?”
“I haven’t any idea.”
“You are our friend, Fletch.” Toninho still walked with Fletch’s elbow in hand. “You helped us with Norival.”