Prose (61 page)

Flamengo Park is narrow, but almost 4 miles long, reaching from the edge of the commercial section of the city southwest along Guanabara Bay. It now looks like a green tropical atoll just risen from the water, but it is really the result of three years' hard work on an unpromising, hideous stretch of mud, dust, pipes and highways long known as “the fill.” It is the one esthetic contribution of Gov. Carlos Lacerda's administration of the city and its suburbs.

Most of the beaches have been refurbished a little. Copacabana has just had its lifeguard “posts” taken down—as suddenly as landmarks vanish in New York. For years, Cariocans have said: “I live between
posto
three and
posto
four,” or: “Meet me at
posto
six,” and it will seem strange not to have these points of reference any more.

*   *   *

Because of the quatercentenary, hotels have been booked solid by out-of-town Brazilians and tourists. Elderly American ladies in print dresses and sunglasses walk the mosaic sidewalks determinedly, looking for something to do. The trouble is, there isn't anything to do or not much. Rio is not really ready for large-scale
tourismo.
The bon mot of the moment is to refer to the 4th
Centenário
as the 4th
Sem Ter Nada.
Spoken fast, they sound much alike, but the second phrase means “without a thing.” Meanwhile, two or three luxury liners arrive every week with more tourists.

A sight-seeing boat has been launched, something Rio has long needed, since its greatest attraction is still that fabulous bay and its islands. Eight gondolas are being built for the Lagoon, a large, enclosed body of water south of the city. According to the papers, these are “copied exactly from a bronze model Governor Lacerda brought from Italy,” and will have “red velvet awnings.” Provision has been made for outboard motors, too, in case it gets too hot for rowing. Two new cable cars are about to start making the trip to the top of the Sugar Loaf and back. Again according to the papers, the “visibility” will be better from these than from the old ones. This is hard to believe: How could that panorama be improved?

*   *   *

Although the pace of city life increases constantly, there is still time to stand and stare in Rio. Men linger in groups in downtown cafés or at newsstands to discuss the latest political moves or look at the passing girls. Visitors are always surprised at how many men who would be—in Henry James's word—“downtown” in New York are on the beaches at 10 o'clock on weekday mornings. This does not mean that Cariocans do not work hard when they work. They just go about it differently.

There is, in fact, much moonlighting. With the present inflation, it is hard to see how workers or the middle class could make ends meet if it were not that everyone down to the humblest nursemaid and lottery-ticket seller did not have some little “business” going on on the side.

*   *   *

There was some talk of having Carnival for a whole week, in honor of the quatercentenary, instead of just the usual four days, but even Rio finally quailed at the thought and the idea was dropped. But Carnival sambas were in the air for weeks in advance; each night, groups went singing and dancing through the streets with their drums, rehearsing. Traffic would stop, or edge around them, and little boys tag along. No Cariocan can resist that rhythm: The cook sambas in the kitchen, and the guests in the
sala
move to it unconsciously (the word is
rebolar
) as they go on with the conversation.

The sambas,
marchas
and other Carnival songs are the living poetry of poor Cariocans. (The words “rich” and “poor” are still in use here, out of style as they are in the affluent parts of the world.) Their songs have always been made from whatever happened to be on their minds: obsessions, fads, fancies and grievances; love, poverty, drink and politics; their love for Rio, but also Rio's three perennial problems: water, light, and transportation. As an old samba says:

Rio de Janeiro,

My joy and my delight!

By day I have no water,

By night I have no light.

One of this year's sambas gives the honest reaction of the masses to last spring's “revolution”:

Kick him out of office!

He's a greedy boy!

I've nothing to investigate,

What I want is joy!

Justice has arrived!

“Pull” won't work again!

Some have fled to Uruguay;

Some have fled to Spain!

And here is this year's version of the annual complaint about the Central Railroad, the line that carries thousands from the huge working-class suburbs north of the city in to work. It is addressed to President Castelo Branco:

Marshál, Illustrious Marshál,

Consider the problem

Of the suburbs on the Centrál!

I'm sorry for poor Juvenal,

Hanging in the old Central

All year long …

He works in Leblon

And lives in Delight,
*

And gets to work mornings

Late at night.

Marshál!

Because of its difficult, if lively, topography, the traffic problems of Rio are even more of a nightmare than those of other big cities. Governor Lacerda appointed a tough air force man, Colonel Fontenelle, to see if he could solve them. First, to everyone's confusion and rage, he changed the direction of almost all the one-way streets: then he attacked double, triple and, some swear, quadruple parking. His system is simple: The police go around letting the air out of the tires of illegally parked cars.

It must be said that this measure, considered much too “hard” by the easy-going Cariocans, has partly succeeded. Anyway, bus travel in the city has been speeded up. This year at least three sambas refer to Colonel Fontenelle's campaign (with appropriate noises). The odd thing is that these sambas were composed, and are mostly sung (and hissed), by those who have never owned cars in their lives and never expect to.

The words of sambas are nothing without the music, and some of the longest-lived and musically most beautiful have the most hackneyed lyrics. Love—light love and serious love—infidelity, prostitution, police raids and line-ups (the subject of a very pretty one this year), moonlight, beaches, kisses, heartbreak, and love again:

Come, my mulatta,

    Take me back.

You're the joker

    In my pack,

The prune in my pudding,

    Pepper in my pie,

My package of peanuts,

    The moon in my sky.

How much longer the samba can hold out against commercialism, television and radio is impossible to say; there are already signs of deterioration. Especially deadly is the new practice of broadcasting sambas over loudspeakers during Carnival itself, so that the people don't, or can't, sing them the way they used to.

Ironically, what may prove to be the real kiss of death to the spontaneity of the samba is that the young rich, after years of devotion to North American jazz, have discovered it. A few years ago only the very few Brazilians, mostly intellectuals, who cared for their own folk-culture took the samba seriously, or went to the rehearsals of the big schools up on the
morros,
the hills. This year, crowds of young people went, one of the symptoms, possibly, of a new social awareness since the “revolution.” And some of this year's crop of songs show a self-consciousness, even a self-pity, that is far removed from the old samba spirit.

*   *   *

Poets are also taking up popular songs, inspired perhaps by Vinicius de Moraes, who wrote the libretto of the movie “Black Orpheus.” He has lately been appearing at a nightclub, Zumzumzum (Rumor), singing his own songs. A young imitator of Yevtushenko, from the south of Brazil, declaimed his poetry to a packed house in Rio, wearing red sweater, white trousers and no socks, with his hair in his eyes. His book is called “The Betrayed Generation.” In fact, a conviction, more or less clearly defined, and more or less justifiable, of “betrayal” seems to be the attitude of both rich and poor, while for the younger rich, a slight subversiveness is considered chic. The Little Castle is a new night club out on Ipanema Beach, and its rich young clientele are often called the “Castelinho Communists”—or parlor pinks.

*   *   *

The most popular show for many weeks has been “Opinion,” named for the samba “Opinion,” by Zé Kéti, a Negro song writer from the
favelas.
The cast consists of Nara Leão, one of the first girl singers of “good family” ever to appear in Rio, who represents the repentant uppercrust; Zé Kéti himself, who represents the
favelas;
and a young Negro from the north, João Batista do Vale, representing the alienated worker who comes to the big city. The three meet, tell their stories, sing, wander about, sit on crates, etc., to the accompaniment of drums, a flute and a guitar. Joan Baez and Pete Seeger are popular now, and so some rather irrelevant North American spirituals and chain-gang songs are included. The death sentence of Tiradentes, “Toothpuller,” the national hero who was condemned for rebellion against Portugal in 1792, is read aloud. There are jokes like: “Red? That color's out of style now.”

What is depressing about “Opinion” to North Americans in the audience is not its vague “message” (considered daringly left in Rio) or its amateurishness (that is rather endearing). It is the sudden, sad, uncanny feeling of
déjà vu:
it is all so reminiscent of college plays in the early thirties with Kentucky miners, clenched fists and awkward stances.

Other plays go on as usual. Arthur Miller's “All My Sons” is one, and “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” has been running a long time. There is Goldoni's “Mirandolina,” and, more typically, plays like “The Moral of Adultery,” “Let's Fall in Love in Cabo Frio” and “The Nuder the Better.” In general, the theater in Rio is far behind the other arts, and acting is in a sort of historical “pocket,” miraculously preserved from about 1910.

The question always in the air is: When are elections to be held? At first they were to be this year; now they have been postponed until 1966, and no one knows the date, or year, for sure. Carlos Lacerda is the only Presidential candidate so far. Ex-President Kubitschek is in self-imposed exile—mostly in Paris—with his political rights taken away for 10 years.

If his followers could find a way of getting around that, he would probably be only too glad to run again. Although his enemies blame the worst of the inflation on Kubitschek's industrial-progress-at-any-cost policy, and his building of Brasília, and believe his Government to have been hopelessly graft ridden, nevertheless they agree he did get things done. And his many partisans, particularly those who grew rich during his term, are eager to get him back.

Pro-Kubitschek propaganda has reached a height of absurdity. Poor, poor Kubitschek, it goes, he lives in a small apartment in Paris,
he drives his own car,
and—worst deprivation of all to the family-minded Brazilians—he hasn't seen his latest grandchild yet. His enemies have given this movement the very Cariocan name of “Operation
Coitadinho,
” a splendid example of the diminutive of
coitado,
“poor little one,” one of the most frequent exclamations on the lips of the soft-hearted, but ironical, Brazilians.

Many people were disappointed when President Castelo Branco announced that he would not run for a full term. They had hoped he would, or at least felt it was too early for him to make such a decision. He has almost no demagogic appeal for the masses, and he has not attempted to cultivate it. He is a sad man, still mourning his wife, who died the year before he became President, and he works hard at the almost impossible job he was reluctant to accept.

He has always been respected; now there seems to be a growing admiration and fondness for him. His unfailing dignity, refusal to play politics or make promises and fine speeches, his preference for appealing to law in emergencies, rather than to emotions—all are something new in Brazil, and a welcome relief after the hysterical atmosphere of the past few years.

The press is free, if wildly inaccurate and frequently libelous, and political arrests, which flourished after last spring's coup, have almost ceased. Talk about police and army brutality and torture has died down, and one can only hope that what Brazilians felt was a national disgrace has been really cracked down on, hard, at last.

*   *   *

Inflation produces an atmosphere unlike any other. It is felt even in the way money is handled: tired old bills wadded into big balls. Bus conductors neither give nor expect exact change any more; there is no change. Shopkeepers give the customer's child a piece of candy, instead. Taxi fares have gone up so many times that the meters are several adjustments behind. At the moment, the fare is twice what the meter says, in the day-time. After dark, it is more or less what the driver says.

In Rio, the inflation has almost lost its power to shock; at least, people no longer talk about it constantly the way they did a year or so ago. The minimum wage has gone up and up, but never quite enough. The poor take the inflation more stoically than any other class, since they have never had any savings to lose, anyway. Some of the rich are undoubtedly getting richer. It is the very small middle class that feels the pinch the most. All eyes are fixed on the movements of the dollar, as on a sort of North Star, and the mood might be described as numb, but slightly more hopeful than it was.

For the first time, the Brazilian Government is adhering to a scheme of economic planning; there has been a renewed flow of foreign capital and the pace of inflation has certainly slowed. The prices of gasoline and bread are way up, because the Government has taken away their former impossibly high subsidies. Fighting inflation has to be done slowly and cautiously in Brazil. Because of the ignorance and the high illiteracy rate—and the longstanding skepticism as well—no strong measure against inflation can be explained to the people. The Government does not dare stop public-works projects, even though they are draining the Treasury; that would be considered too “hard.” Wages and prices will go on rising yet a while, although they are supposed to level off this year.