The Fugitivities, стр. 47

Jonah put down his book. At his side, Octavio was snoring peacefully, his eyes covered with an airline-issued sleeping mask. A paisley tie was flicked back over his shoulder and splashes of a lasagna dinner bloodied his shirt; on his lap, a weathered copy of the war diaries of José Martí was propped up on its pages like a general’s tent.

Jonah had paid for the airfare with money from Uncle Vernon’s will, but how long would the rest last on the ground?

A stewardess came up the aisle. There was another jolt, stronger this time, and Jonah flinched. His eyes were squeezed shut. He prayed, in the most secular way, for time to pass. Into his unpeaceful mind came a vision. At first, he thought it was the spirits of the holds, of the drowned, rocking the plane. But this struck him as an absurd, primitive fear. The spirit level, if it existed, wouldn’t stand a chance against the computer-assisted engineering of Boeing. So why then, of all things, was he moaning? Why did his moaning seem not his own as it swelled? He felt a cold heat starting in the pit of the stomach and rising up through his chest. Let it be. A surrender of the body, the pure flame giving up. For a moment it was the peace of weightlessness. And then, against every conviction, he felt them as they passed through, rushing onward in a shimmering grotesque and clanging with languages he had no tongue for. They passed eastward into the night leaving behind a cavernous emptiness. Their fading cries, sending for him, sounded like warnings. Against what? The unavoidable, for it was too late. She was already upon him, moving out of the roiling depths, a giant shadow living within the shadows. Her great rim closed in overhead and the ocean gave way to a living hold. A home within the darkwater.

He came to in a fright. The plane was still. He was safe. Around him rows of bodies were slumped in their cushioned seats, absently focused on pale screens. There was a soft ping. Seatbelt lights.

—

On the ground, Rio de Janeiro was a new world. Verdant pockets of lush floral beauty smashed into the concrete of mid-century bank towers, which in turn towered over baroque colonial ruins. The street life was teeming, overflowing, hot; a bouillon concentrated in the countless outdoor bars, cafés, and hole-in-the-wall eateries where raucous Cariocas gathered around glasses of beer served bem gelada from tall garrafas sweating in their cold sleeves. Jonah noticed the abdundance of popcorn carts, little trolleys in the zany intersections attended by sad-faced men. The sound of Portuguese was almost unbearably sweet, like a caramelized French. Jonah scrambled to jot down lists of words as they came up—pipoca, “popcorn”—but the new language poured easily through Octavio. He churned it right back out, a bit choppy, but alive to its unique rhythms and intonations.

Octavio had directions for how to get to the apartment where Barthes was staying, but they were clearly wrong. Someone had cherry-picked the intelligence. A thrashing rain started coming down and it was getting dark, so they ducked into a bar to wait out the worst of it and give Octavio some time to try and formulate a better plan. Plump men idled at the counter, scanning the street front or watching the mounted television in the corner. Jonah watched the flickering box, inferring content from the images. Commentators were shouting hysterically over soccer replays. Then a news segment came on about an upsurge of violence. A “pacification” operation was in effect across the city and state in support of the Pan American Games. The toll was apparently high, several police injuries and many deaths among the traficantes, drug dealers. Octavio had figured out how to get a telephone card and ducked out to use one of the Skittle-colored booths to call Barthes. He came back with a confident swagger, proud that he had gotten them back on track.

The new orders involved a long walk, at one point taking them along a highway, which cut underneath a mountain covered in shantytown constructions that Octavio pointed out to him were the “favelas.” They followed a narrow walkway caught in the violent tangerine glare of oncoming traffic. By the time they emerged the rain had finally passed, and you could see the stars again, pinholes in the tropical night.

They came to yet another beach, long and brightly lit like a bracelet studded with empty café tables facing the ocean. There was a faint smell of rotting fish in the air. On one of the beachfront terraces, Jonah watched a middle-aged American couple as they struggled to order their drinks. Splotches of rose branded their arms and calves. It was the first time, he realized, that he was somewhere nobody would find his complexion remarkable. Now they were the minority, pinkish flotsam in a sea of honey, brown, and black.

Dark-skinned women in heels walked distractedly back and forth in front of the hotels. Street vendors hawked anything on which they could print a Brazilian flag. A group of younger men came up from the beach laughing loudly and jabbing at each other. Hotel staffers in drab uniforms wandered in and out of their establishments, verifying things, making rounds, and scanning the beachfront expectantly. Begging children came asking for money and food. A shirtless boy in ragged shorts asked Jonah for a cigarette. He hesitated, then gave him one.

Barthes had a room in a condominium tower on the rua Gustavo Sampaio in what appeared to be, from what they had seen, one of the ugliest parts of the city. When they rang her bell, she cracked open the door and then, seeing it was them, threw her arms around Octavio, greeting them both in the familiar, bubbly Esperanto of American collegiate irony.

Jonah recognized Barthes immediately, right down to the way she swept her sandy blond hair under a bandanna. She