Dance Lest We All Fall Down - Margaret Willson [33]
Yet I arrived to a street full of people walking, laughing, and playing ball. In the midst of this poverty, people hated and died, but they also lived. Jorge’s family had constructed their house bit by bit over the years and were now building two rooms in half of what had been a double garage. They planned to rent out these rooms for about fifty dollars each a month. Everyone in the family contributed, and by working together for years, they now had a comfortable house, a television, and, recently, a car. Lula, Jorge’s father, was the only one who drove it.
After thirty years of marriage, Jorge’s parents still adored each other. “I ran around a lot when I was young,” said Lula, “but now I need no one but her.”
The room project was clearly Zezé’s brainchild and, on the day of my first visit, she brought Lula beers periodically (drinking half herself first) while he worked muddling the walls.
“My builder,” she explained.
“Our builder,” the youngest son, Duda, said, snatching the beer from her hand and taking a swig himself.
We hung out in the street. João, Jorge’s brother in law, showed up with Mauro, his two-year-old son. Mauro had rubella, but this did not stop him from running, laughing, and trying to play soccer. He could already stop the ball with his foot and kick it where he wanted it to go, which was about as much as I could do.
João and a female cousin began telling stories. I quickly realized where Jorge had acquired his talent for storytelling. It was a street art, polished and perfected. I watched, fascinated, as they built their characters, mimicking movement and voice, choreographing a scene that surrounded us all.
Then they all paused. They were looking at me. My stomach clenched as I realized they expected me to tell a story now. I stumbled and began a tale about a funny happening with the child of a friend. I flushed with gratitude when they didn’t walk away in boredom and even politely laughed at the end.
Jorge and I walked back to the house together. “How’s things going with your girlfriend?” I asked. Jorge’s girlfriend, whom he had known for years, was trying to pressure him into marriage.
“I don’t know, Danger. She keeps saying she’s pregnant and then she isn’t. She screams at me all the time.”
“Why?”
“She wants me to be home, not to play capoeira, to get a job here. But I love capoeira.”
“And you’re good at it, Jorge. You and Gato, of all the group, could be teachers. You half hold the group together already.”
“You think I’m that good?”
“You know you are. And you have a calm that helps everyone else.”
Jorge laughed. “That’s because I have a good family,” he said.
Later, over lunch, we talked about issues of racial oppression in Brazil. Lula and Zezé loved to talk about politics.
“One big difference between the United States and Brazil,” Lula said, “is that the U.S. had a Civil War where the north fought for abolition—isn’t that right? Thirty years later we got abolition here in Brazil, but no one fought for it. You know why we got abolition? Because the planters didn’t need slaves any more. Economically they were better off without slaves. So we got abolition. In the United States, abolition was something dramatic, a challenge to the social system. Here abolition never touched the status quo.”
“They say there’s no racism here,” Zezé said, “but if a white man and a black man apply for the same job, the white man gets it.” She put more beans on my plate. “You aren’t eating enough. Don’t you like it?”
“I love the food,” I said, “but I can’t eat any more. I’m full.”
“You hardly ate anything,” Lula said. He rubbed his round belly proudly. “My wife is an excellent cook.”
“Shush!” Zezé said and pretended to frown.
I concentrated on my plate and tried to stuff in a few more bites.
One evening soon after, Luzia and I got a telephone call from Dona Cida, Gato