V. Expensive Lessons

Things learned thus far:

• The correct response when accosted by a Brazilian tranny is "Eu nao quero AIDS."
• If you think Brazilian people are poor, you're wrong.
• There is an important difference between "suco" and "soco." Hint: one will get you punched in the face.
• This country is always hot. Always.
• The language they teach you in class rooms is not the language they speak on the streets.
• It is socially acceptable, if not encouraged, to walk through the McDonalds "drive through" window.
• If you fall in love with your Brazilian empregada and leave money in your closet, she will steal it, along with your heart.
• It is a serious legal and social problem to accuse, suggest, imply or otherwise infer that anybody of the working class stole anything from you. Doing so will almost invariably result in legal action.

Concerning the last two, let's just say that I've already lost The Game (see post I), and it happened right in the comfort of my own "home." I say home with some bitterness because Ivo's home will cease to be mine in a matter of days, and I will move in with a new family several miles away, along the beach and closer to the city proper. This decision was not altogether mine, but born out of necessity after approximately 150 reais went missing out of the closet in my room one day. Upon this discovery, I attempted to explain in shitty Portuguese to Ivo and Andre that I wondered if Claudia, the maid, hadn't rearranged it and put it somewhere else, as she was so fond of doing with my personal effects. I quickly abandoned this and switched to broken English (of which Andre understands a little) when I realized how delicate of a thought I was attempting to convey: there is a fine line between accusing someone and asking if they have seen money lying around.

Presently I learned that, in Brazil, this line does not exist.

Once I made sure they understood what I was asking, Ivo called Claudia and I left to continue my birthday-weekend celebration at Porto de Barra. When I returned home I learned that Claudia had immediately quit and threatened to sue Ivo for harrassment. Drunk, happy and still reeling from a romantic night on the beach watching Buena Vista Social Club, I could hardly comprehend the amount of bullshit that awaited me when I awoke in the morning to meet up with my friends and travel to the nearby paradisal island of Itaparica.

I awoke later than I had planned and frantically threw together a day-pack before going to sit down for a quick breakfast. Ivo and Andre sat side-by-side on one side of the table and gave me a solemn "bom dia." As I attempted to laugh off their grim demeanor and eat breakfast as quickly as possible, they began asking me very specific questions about the missing money, relaying everything through Andre's slow and unsmiling English.

Ivo: [inscrutable Portuguese]
Andre: "Ivo says he wants to know how much was in your closet."
Levi: "I believe it was one hundred and fifty reais."
Andre:

"Ele diz que havia cem e cinqüenta reais no armário"
Ivo: [inscrutable Portuguese]
Andre: "Ivo says you told him before it is one hundred. Which it is?"
Levi: "I don't remember exactly. It was at least one hundred, probably one hundred and fifty."
Andre: [blah blah, semi-understandable words]
Ivo: [meaningless syllables]
Andre: "Ivo says, what kind of bills it is in? When you put it in the closet? It was there for how long?"
Levi: "I think it was on this day, I think it was for this long, blah blah. All I know is that there was money there and now there isn't."

I began to grow increasingly frustrated with their questions, when Andre explained to me that they were merely asking me the same questions that the cops were going to ask me when we went to file the case at the police station that day, and certainly the same questions the lawyers were going to ask me. My jaw dropped; I learned that what had just transpired was an extremely serious offense in Salvador, a city historically renown for its status as a living monument to Afro-Brazilian slavery. Salvador contains the second biggest population of black people in the world--to accuse a member of the working class of stealing from you is not only outrageous to their families, it is an open invitation for countless numbers of civil rights lawyers to dip their ladles into the cesspool of political dollars being thrown at anyone who feels they've been taken advantage of by someone with lighter skin and unsavory family history. And what better target than the white, sunburned americano who can't speak a word of street-language to save his life?

I spoke on the phone with Clara, director at ACBEU and liaison for the many problems of American students at the school, and was told to go ahead with my trip to Itaparica. But the case was far from closed. Ivo watched me as I spoke on the phone in crisp, direct English, understanding nothing but his own name. The only message I wanted to get across, and that I had failed to express in Portuguese, was that I had not accused anybody of anything, that the money was not important to me and, most importantly, that I merely wanted to avoid causing Ivo problems. She assured me this was already impossible. I cursed, hung up the phone and dashed off to meet my friends, who had already been waiting for the better part of an hour.

I spent the rest of the day wandering the isolated paradise, attempting to forget about cold-calculating Brazilians watching me, and succeeding only when we had traveled to the far side of the island, where hardly anyone was around. We smoked a joint standing waist-deep in the warm Atlantic waters; we undressed and wore the heat on our shoulders... my thoughts drifted off. But with every brasilheiro that we passed, I imagined him imagining me made out of a Matrix code of dollar signs.

For the length of our return via boat and then bus, I watched everyone watching us, forming ideas and strategies in my head that weren't necessary. I planned escape routes, expected the unexpected and reassured myself of nonexistent platitudes concerning Brazilians. These hallucinations, amplified by the heat and lack of food (I couldn't afford any since I had no reserves left and no time to find a bank), continued as I repeated my story over and over again. The next day at school, I received a note from Clara requesting my presence after class. I found her and Ivo waiting for me in her office. I sat down and they dropped a bomb on me: I had to move in with a new host family.

Walking home with Ivo, I felt like Michael Valentine Smith; the Martian protagonist of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. The only thoughts I could translate into his language were pathetically basic and childlike in nature; "I am sad. I don't like money." He at least seemed to understand my priorities.

My choices were between two families; one across the street from the school and one several miles away on the beach in an area known as Barra. Before I went to visit with them I walked with some friends to a nearby ATM to get money for the bus, which was necesasry to travel to Barra. I inserted one card into a machine, entered my PIN and the amount desired, and nothing. I tried again; nothing. I went to another machine, took out a different card and tried that one: no dice. I began to pour sweat, drawing strange looks from the two guards at the door armed with shotguns. An alarm at the bank began to sound, seemingly for no reason at all. I attempted to explain to an employee what had happened, she said she would turn the machine off but nothing more could be done. The alarm went off again. I mumbled under my breath about "this fucking country" and left; the paranoid delusions returned exponentially.

I was told that the Barra family had expressed interest in me, but I visited both. The first "family" was actually a quiet middle-aged woman living by herself in a small flat with an ocean view. Not bad. Her gossamer voice seemed to float away on the breeze coming through the window. I asked her how to find the next address and she told me to take the bus. Instead of telling her I couldn't afford it I thanked her and left, preparing myself for a long walk at a brisk pace with many wary over-the-shoulder glances.

It was dark when I found the place. No doorman; I pushed the button marked "6" and waited. Presently, one gravelley word came across: "Americano?" I responded with the affirmative and the door unlocked. At the top of the staircase waited a broadly built brasilheiro with a wide nose and friendly face. He immediately offered his hand and his name: "Caio." He called to his mother and she emerged from the bathroom to meet me.

Immediately I was reminded of my mother from os Estados Unidos: a tan, middle-aged woman with eager eyes and a slow, deliberate voice. She gave me a cursory tour of the flat, then we sat on her balcony, overlooking the beach and the Salvadorian statue of Cristo (it's hilariously dwarfed by it's famous Rio counterpart), and smoked cigarettes. We exchanged basic questions concerning age, likes, dislikes, weather, sports, jobs, etc. I seemed to entertain her, and she put me at ease with her patience and easily-understood words. She asked me when I was going to move in, and as I tried to form the sentence "I have not decided yet," I realized that I had decided. I wanted to be a part of this family.

Her son gave me a ride home back to Campo Grande, and as he smoked a cigarette and dodged motorcyclists, I began to feel my faith being restored in these people. Perhaps they weren't all cold-calculating machines, perhaps there were even some I could trust....

Caio stopped the car to let me out. I thrust out my hand and said two words in clear, perceptible Portuguese: "Irmão, obrigado."

And now, to pack my bags. My new family awaits...