chain from its zipper, flicking sunlight stridently at his eyes and he wondered how much money she might be carrying and if she had ever taken self-defense classes.
He was ashamed and shook his head as he eased the car into a parking spot and turned on the radio to pagode. The stringed instruments fluttered at a quick rhythm and made him think of a hummingbird’s wings. The windows were down in front and he closed his eyes to the afternoon heat, to the golden burn of the sun through the windshield.
A year ago, Juliana had gone to the birthday party of Ana Clara, a school friend whose young, clean-shaven father was a prosecutor for the city of Rio de Janeiro and whose young, clean-smelling mother managed a woman’s clothing store in Leblon. Their spacious apartment in Ipanema flanked Rua Prudente de Morais. It was on the tenth floor with windows that overlooked the stretch of rooftop swimming pools that, in turn, framed the blue and youthful expanse of the beach in the South Zone. “And they had a, a,” Juliana said that evening, “an espresso machine that made fresh coffee with a button!” She ate her rice, her black beans with bits of sausage, her watery kale. “And they were gone for two weeks in America! Ana Clara said they have every store in the world there, and it’s much cheaper. They rode roller coasters and she met every character from the movies!”
Oswaldo dos Santos knew traffickers and gang members. They did what they did first out of necessity, and then to fulfill the addiction of luxury. He turned and looked at the marble-colored façade of Shopping Barra, again letting his mind wander in the simmering heat. Did she carry that big bag here just to hold a tiny mirror? No, she must have mounds of money in it, to buy her dresses and makeups and fancy meals. He thought, some criminals kill the people they rob, but others just take what they need and let them go on their way. He was not aware of the term victimless crime but this concept floated through his mind until she came back nearly an hour later, carrying three shopping bags of delicate cardboard-colored paper. She set it all gently next to her on the backseat, arranging them side-by-side. She spoke as if he had expressed a deep interest in her purchases. “They didn’t have the evening dress in cream, though they said they did when I called. Anyway, I can wear this to the wedding reception at least.” She looked out the window and said nothing for a few moments. Then she turned to his face in the rearview mirror, not hiding an unspoken impatience. “So, let’s go?”
“To where, ma’am?” She looked even younger now. No more than twenty, he thought.
She said, “New York City Center. And turn up the air conditioning, please.” She was no longer looking up at the rearview mirror, as if making eye contact with him had only been a game that had quickly become boring. Now she typed rapidly on an iPhone with her delicate, whitish fingers.
The expectation that he would comply and she would not be disturbed was as clear and apparent to the both of them as the sharp, cool air that began chilling his damp, olive skin. He pulled onto the main street that lined Barra da Tijuca, its high-rise luxury condominiums and cavernous, expensive restaurants. On the way to the next shopping mall, he looked at the scenery and had the familiar feeling of disconnectedness. I don’t like this neighborhood, he told himself with a quiet and unnoticed bitterness. He spent another hour in front of the New York City Center, again with the air conditioning off and the windows open, again wondering whether stealing money from those who already had so much of it was really such a bad thing. When she returned, she said she wanted to add another two hours. Her friend had called, she said, and now she had to meet for late lunch. They arrived at the Windsor Barra Hotel and she departed for the rooftop. It was almost four o’clock and he had not eaten anything but he was afraid to leave and find out she had come down to meet him and found him missing. There was something to be said for the amount of money she now owed him, and he began to doubt his earlier theory that working freely on the meter was the best idea. By six, the air coming through the open window began to silken with that Atlantic metropolitan scent: seawater, fish, car exhaust, expensive colognes. It was not quite as warm as the day before; the orange globe slowly settled behind the tumultuous waves of Recreio dos Bandeirantes to the west. A few surfers clad in sinewy wet suits scattered down the wave-faces in evening silhouettes, black and shiny like seals. He checked his clock again at six fifteen. She was late, and he knew that now he was definitely going to miss O mundo do amor. Still a tremor of anticipation ran through him because she had offered to pay him more than he had made the entire two previous days. She eventually emerged from the hotel looking slightly glassy-eyed and moving with the unsteady gate of a soldier avoiding land mines. The shopping bags crinkled in a riot as she fell in to the backseat and put her head back, closing her eyes. “Too much white wine, young man,” she said, putting one of her smooth, spear-like hands against her forehead. “Take me home.”
He asked her the address and was not surprised when she told him a neighborhood nestled on a hill over the small pocket of torrential ocean that separated Leblon from São Conrado. She probably lived with her parents, and had an enormous bedroom with a view of the lonely islands offshore. Nearing her home, he was suddenly shocked by how dark it had become. The night had materialized as if made of foam and suggested a thickness that filled the interior of the car and clouded his headlights. She was asleep. Isolation brought back that peculiar and foreign plot to his head. A simple trick, really. The handle of her bag was a large loop of gold-painted leather, something quite easy to grab and hold while running. A broad and European-looking gate (a guess, since he had never been to Europe) stopped him at the long driveway. Her breath came slowly, tentatively, as if she bordered on the edge of wakefulness. Oswaldo dos Santos listened for a long time, imagining the look on Juliana’s face when he presented her with the folder that the tour companies mailed after the purchase was made.
“Ma’am.”
He recalled that his father, to his credit, had returned once from a month-long haul to Salvador and taken Oswaldinho on his lap, giving him a little statue of a baiana in white dress.
“Ma’am.”
When she woke, it was a slow rise to consciousness. She blinked infantly, ran a hand over her eyes, her face. She yawned and her mouth moved like a child suckling. She took her large fashionable bag and searched it with both hands, eventually withdrawing a stack of notes and handing them over without counting. She asked if she could keep his card in case she needed to hire him the following weekend and he said yes. He suddenly turned red and felt tenderness for her.
When he returned the car to the TaxiCoop office, it was almost nine o’clock. The old man had been replaced by the young kid who worked night shifts. Oswaldo dos Santos signed the car back in and stopped to have a plate of shrimp empadas and a beer before taking the minibus back to the corner where he picked it up in the mornings. Inside, the apartment was very much as it had been that morning: dark, smelling of tightly-packed humanity, offering hanging undergarments at every turn. Juliana lay on her stomach on her bed in the living room, one hand tucked under the pillow. She looked as if she had never left. He had not seen her awake in two days. He pulled the sheet up to her neck and ran his palm down her hair. Oswaldo dos Santos remained there for a very long time, watching her, imagining every iteration of her potentiality, and when he grew tired, he went and washed his face in the bathroom. He crept into the bed next to the silent sighing of Mariana on her back. He would have asked her about the dresses she had made that day, how many orders she had processed. There was a sewing machine on her list and one day, she wanted to work out of the house and maybe even hire a team of two or three to do the labor while she managed the orders and dealt directly with customers. He would have asked her about O mundo do amor as well. He closed his eyes and let his labored, animal-like breathing lull him to sleep.
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