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By Root 112 0

my father had slept. And the man’s memory followed me downriver all the way to Belém. The only subject of conversation on board was disaster. It was like a boatload of survivors from a shipwreck. Near Breves I remembered the shipwreck of the Eldorado, and almost at the same moment I remembered a promise of Amando’s. It was on the day he came back from a journey to Pará. He came into the white palace with a look of pleasure and triumph, and instead of talking about the freighters and the business, he mentioned the beauties of Belém: the Old Town, the Salt Quay, the Grande Hotel, the magnificent mansions, churches and squares. And the sea. The Amazon and the Atlantic, with their mingled waters. I wanted to see the city. He promised we’d go together on the next trip, but he went on his own. When he came back, he’d already forgotten the promise.

The Grande Hotel was a fabulous building. An old receptionist asked if I was a relative of Amando Cordovil. His son, I replied. He spoke feelingly of his guest’s goodness and his tips, and asked how he was. Dead, I said.

Poor Doctor Cordovil, the old man said with sadness. He didn’t tell me he had a son. He used to visit the tomb of a relative in the English Cemetery.

My grandfather’s bones were buried in Vila Bela. I knew nothing of my grandmother, nor of any other relatives. Curiosity took me to the English Cemetery. I walked around the little graveyard, reading epitaphs on Carrara marble gravestones. It was noon; hardly had I sat down on a stone seat than it began to rain. What the devil was I doing there? A face attracted my gaze. A portrait of a dead man. I went over to the stone: Cristóvão A. Cordovil, who died in a shipwreck on the coast of British Guiana. The name of the ship seemed tied to my destiny: Eldorado. The name, and the face of that Cordovil: angular, with a prominent chin and thick eyebrows. How could he be dead if he looked at me with the same look as my father? I was afraid of falling into a trap, of not getting the money from the promissory notes. I left the cemetery with this evil omen hanging over me. Amando was nowhere, but he seemed to be following my every step.

I went to the Grande Hotel to change and wait for the rain to pass. Then, in the English bank, I handed the manager the two promissory notes. He asked for proof of identity; I also handed him a letter that Becassis had written and signed, on Estiliano’s insistence. I was relieved when I had the packet of money in my hands, and I laughed at my own forebodings. I could taste the pleasure that Amando had always refused me. And I could spend it without a father or a guardian looking over my shoulder. I let my hair down in the Café da Paz and the bars of the Old Town; I met Mestre Chico and other bohemians and musicians who sang and played tunes and modinhas to the accompaniment of flute, guitar, violin and cavaquinho. I paid for the drink for these night time revels and the tickets to go to the operettas of the Chat Noir troupe in the Modern Theatre in Nazaré Square. We saw the dawn come up on the Salt Quay. Then I rented a launch and saw the sea for the first time. In the Paris n’América shop I bought pieces of Swiss organdie and French and Italian silk. They were presents for Estrela, Becassis’s daughter, but it was as if they were for Dinaura. I cashed the second promissory note and bought clothes and shoes for myself and Florita; I went by the Alfacinha bookshop and got a box of French books for Estiliano. I was sick of so much buying, spending, carousing, eating and drinking in the best restaurants. After more than two months of living that way, it felt like the same futile wasted life I led in Manaus, in the time before I met Dinaura. I couldn’t forget her, and I had little hope of finding her.

In the hotel, I asked the old receptionist how much my father gave as a tip. It was a pittance. I’d give him twenty times that. I changed my mind when I opened my wallet: ten times would do, but in the end I gave him five pounds sterling. And lo and behold, the old man’s face was wet with happiness. The