From the head of the table, Teodomiro da Costa looked down at Fletch. A virus a few years before had given da Costa’s left eye a permanent hooded effect, which became worse when he was tired, or wished to use it on someone. He was now using it on Fletch.
“It is a good thing, I think,” Fletch said into the silence, “for the artists of each generation to destroy the past, to begin again. I think perhaps it is necessary for them.”
It was many moments, then, before conversation flowed smoothly again.
“You have Laura, I see. I am glad.” Viana sat next to Fletch on the divan in the living room. They were waiting for Laura Soares to play the piano. “You must be very careful of women in Rio.”
“You must be very careful of women everywhere.”
“That is true. But women in Rio.” He sipped his coffee. “Even I. Late at night. Have found myself dancing with one of them. A man, you know. An operated-on man. It is more easy than you think to be tricked.”
“Not anything is as it seems in Brazil,” Fletch said.
“It is easy to be tricked.”
Laura played first some Villa Lobos, of course, then some of her own arrangements of the compositions of Milton Nascimento, somehow keeping in balance his romantic sweetness, his folkloric virility, his always progressing, complicated, mysterious melodic lines. At the side of the room, in a deep armchair, Otavio Cavalcanti dozed over his coffee cup. Then she played arrangements of other deeply folkloric Brazilian music Fletch did not recognize.
Laura Soares must have used piano technique she learned at the London Conservatory, but she played none of the music she had learned there.
After everyone except Otavio, her father, had applauded, Laura said, “Not so good.” She smiled at Fletch. “I have practiced little the last two weeks.”
“We have come to see your new paintings, Teo!” So the young man first into the reception room announced. With his white open shirt and slacks he wore a forest green cape, a green buccaneer hat, green shoes. Immediately, his eyes found Fletch across the room.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” Teo said from the bar.
Just suddenly they were there, four young men dressed expensively, tailored perfectly, each in his own style, moving slowly, expectantly into the big reception room at the top of the house like a theatrical troupe taking over a stage. All but one had lithe bodies, the graceful ways of moving one would expect from fencers, acrobats, or gymnasts. The fourth was heavier, duller in the eye, maybe a little drunk, and moved unevenly.
“Toninho!” the women cried.
The Viana woman smothered him with kisses.
“Tito! Orlando!” No one seemed to greet the fourth young man immediately. Someone finally said, “Norival! How do you find yourself?”
Tito was dressed entirely in black. His shirt and slacks had to have been fitted to him while they were wet. No seams showed in his clothes.
Orlando wore blue stripes down the sides of his white slacks, blue epaulettes on his shoulders.
And Norival was dressed as expensively, but somehow the earth-brown pockets in his light green slacks and shirt did not seem so amusing.
The people had surrounded the four young men, three of whom were uncommonly handsome, and were talking in Portuguese and laughing. Laura had gone to give each of them a hug and kisses.
Fletch ordered a guaraná from the barman.
Not only had the dinner been cleared from the long table in the reception room during Laura’s recital, the long table itself had disappeared.
Their backs to the room, some paintings had been placed on the floor along one wall.
One easel had been set up in the best light of that room.
Now Toninho stood in that light, in front of the easel, making gestures with his arms which made his green cape ripple in that light. Whatever he was saying was making the people around him laugh. He seemed to be charming even his companions, Tito, Orlando, and Norival.
Laura’s eyes were shining happily when she came back to Fletch.
“Who are they?” he asked.
“The Tap Dancers. They are called the Tap Dancers. Just friends of each other. It’s just a name.”
“Do they dance?”
“You mean, professionally?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Sing?”
“No.”
“Do tricks?”
“They are just friends.”
“Fashionable, I think.”
“Aren’t they sleek?”
Hand emerging from his cape, Toninho came forward to shake hands with Fletch.
“Toninho,” Laura said happily. “This is I. M. Fletcher.”
“Ah, yes.” Toninho’s eyes were as brilliant as gems and as active as boiling water. “Janio Barreto. I am Toninho Braga.”
“You know about that?” Fletch shook hands.
Toninho flung his arms up, sending his cape back over his shoulders. Clearly, in his eyes, he was enjoying his own act; possibly, confident in his virility, he was satirizing fashion, fashionable behavior. “The whole world knows about that!”
Teo da Costa came into the group.
Laura said something to Toninho in Portuguese. Toninho answered, briefly, and she laughed.
“Fletcher,” Teo da Costa said quietly, “within the next day or so, I would like to talk with you. Privately.”
“Of course.”
“Your father is not here. Not looking into your life…”
With great dignity, Teo’s face was averted.
“Of course, Teo. I’d appreciate it.”
“Come, Teo!” Toninho exclaimed. “The paintings! We came to see your new paintings!”
One by one, Teo placed the paintings on the easel and let his guests study, enjoy them. They were by Marcier, Bianco, Portinari, Teruz, di Cavalcanti, Virgulino. For the most part they were clear, even bold, in the bright, solid earth colors. Especially did Fletch like one of a mother and child, another of a child with a cage. All the rhythms and colors and feelings and mysteries of Brazil were in the paintings, to Fletch.
Later, Fletch sat on the divan next to the sleepy Otavio Cavalcanti.
“You like the paintings?” Otavio asked.
“Very much.”
“Better than the museum building?” Otavio smiled. “You are a North American. Everyone expects your passion to be for buildings and computers and other machines.”
“Yes.”
“Teo perhaps has the best collection, now that the museum is just a wonderful building again.”
“He must be careful of fire.”
To that, Otavio did not respond.
“Perhaps you can tell me this,” Fletch said to Otavio. “Getting dressed tonight, looking for a shoe, I discovered a small carved stone under my bed.”
Otavio raised one eyebrow.
“A small stone. It was carved into a toad. A frog.”
Otavia sighed.
“Why would the maid put a stone toad under my bed?”
Slowly, heavily, Otavio Cavalcanti lifted himself off the divan. He went to the bar and got himself a Scotch and water.
“Come on.” Laura samba-walked across the room, holding her hands out to Fletch. He sat alone on the divan, thinking of Ilha dos Caicaras. He was thinking of himself as Ilha dos Caicaras, a small island in the lagoon. “I worked enough. I played a little concert. Let’s go with the Tap Dancers.”
“Where are they going?”
Otavio was drinking alone at the bar.
“Seven-oh-six. Toninho wants us to go with them. To hear the music. To dance.”
“Everyone?”
“Just you and me. And the Tap Dancers.”
Fletch got up from the divan. “Why do I keep asking your father questions? Great scholar. I have never gotten an answer yet.”
Laura glanced at her father at the bar. “Come on. If you have foolish questions, the Tap Dancers will have foolish answers for you. You’ll get along fine together.”