The Fugitivities, стр. 62
Francesca was in the kitchen preparing a bottle for her daughter. They all embraced and set about working on trimmings for the roast beef and drinks. They were expecting her father, Euclides (her mother couldn’t come because of a political engagement), and her younger brothers, Carlo and Theo, both still in school and, Francesca noted proudly, avid salsa dancers. So eight people in all, plus Paolina, who would nibble from her mother’s plate. Octavio got to entertaining her grandparents in the living room with tales of their travels, with an emphasis on the marvels (and an elision of the perils) of Rio de Janeiro.
Euclides arrived next. He was a bald-headed bull of a man who clearly had downed more than a few drinks before arriving. Her father gave each of the guests a bear hug—in Octavio’s case, one that looked a little too intense to be comfortable. But when Euclides learned that he was Cuban, he was immediately bellowing and roaring with approval, demanding to know why Francesca hadn’t told him so in the first place. Now the drinking began in earnest, and even Francesca’s grandmother had a full glass of wine. Around eight o’clock, as everything was nearing completion, the brothers arrived. Carlo and Theo came in together in mud-streaked soccer jerseys, declaring themselves victorious and tramping about the apartment singing their club’s fight songs. They barely noticed the Americans as they swept up their grandparents in their arms, dancing around the living room, tossing Paolina in the air, and romping all over the furniture. Euclides barked at them to get in the shower. Francesca shouted from the kitchen that they smelled. And without any further prompting, like a passing cyclone, they disappeared to get changed.
When everyone finally sat down to the family meal, Octavio was seated between Francesca and her father, while Jonah was placed in a corner seat next to Antônia. They all took each other’s hands around the table to say grace. Francesca’s grandfather intoned the benediction in a soft near-whisper. Jonah closed his eyes. Antônia’s hand was buttery smooth like a leaf of chard.
The dinner could begin. Euclides carved with pomp as he quizzed Theo and Carlo on the details of their match. When everyone had been served, they all began eating and there was a general silence until from across the table, Francesca’s grandfather addressed the guests in a quaint English:
“So, my boys, what are you doing in Brazil?”
Theo and Carlo chuckled to themselves. Octavio decided to take it on.
“We are traveling. We came to visit a friend, but some of our plans had to change, and we realized it was a chance to see more of this beautiful country, and to delay going back to the United States.”
“Are you with some kind of an exchange program?” her grandfather pursued.
“No, not exactly. My friend Jonah is a great teacher, and I am…a poet…and I am on a mission, an expedition, I have come to understand, to learn, to discover the true materials I need for my poetry.”
Theo and Carlo burst out laughing at this point and would have continued unrestrained if it not for Euclides’s admonishing glare.
“They come all this way to see us, isn’t it wonderful, and what do we have to show them—a country bankrupted by violence and corruption, our whole society a charade for these rotten politicians to plunder at will…a carnival, yes, a carnival of greed, and with the Party as—”
Francesca, who had been spooning rice for her daughter, jumped in with tender exasperation.
“Papa, please!”
At this her grandmother advised Francesca not to raise her voice, and then asked the table at large if maybe a discussion of politics could be left for another more appropriate occasion. Everyone fell into a cumbersome silence. The brothers suddenly declared that they had to go, the weekend had landed, they explained, and they were going out dancing. They cleared their own plates and gave a hasty salute as they bolted for the door. After they had gone, Euclides struck up a conversation with Jonah about politics, but kept his voice down.
Octavio asked Francesca if he could give Paolina a present, a book he had bought on Jonah’s recommendation. He wanted to inscribe it, and Francesca helped him write a note.
When he showed Paolina the book, she pried it open cautiously and mussed a few pages before looking up.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s The Little Prince,” he said. “A book for you.”
The girl looked down again, this time at the cover, which showed a French boy with hair the color of stars, wearing a bowtie and a flared pistachio jumpsuit, standing on a lonely planet. “But he’s not a little prince,” she said decisively. “He’s a big king!” Octavio knew better than to argue with that.
Euclides insisted that if his guests had come this far to see the real Brazil, they must see his mountain cabin before they left. He explained that he would have business in Alvorada for the next few days, but that he could pick them up the following Friday and drive them to the Serra. Francesca urged them to come. They enthusiastically agreed.
Jonah saw less and less of his roommate that week, and spent more and more time wandering alone around the city or drifting through slow-motion cyberspace at the hostel. With nothing in particular to do, he felt a new kind of freedom, and as his Portuguese improved, he was getting better at navigating the small necessities of everyday life. It was pleasant to be untethered to, and unencumbered by, Octavio; he even enjoyed his best-friend role as he got daily news of increasingly romantic and intimate encounters. Best of all, it gave him time to write to Arna, and he spent more than one late night writing up his impressions of the new city, telling her about Octavio’s manic episodes and his maté binging, the strange but oddly beautiful poetry of his