Brasyl

“I told you you wouldn’t believe it. But it’s the truest thing there is.”

Marcelina rocked back in her chair.

“Have you got, could you get me, I really need something to drink.”

Mestre Ginga went to the refrigerator. Full dark had fallen; the blue light from the cool cabinet was painful as he hunted for a Skol. Marcelina started at the sound of car tires squealing on the greasy road. Every twitch, every fidget and rustle was an enemy. Marcelina drank the beer. It was stupidly cold and gloriously real and it slid through her like rain through a ghost, touching nothing. The Mestre’s cellular rang; a slow ladainha for solo voice and betimbau. As he talked — low, short phrases — realization passed through Marcelina in the shadow of the beer.

“I’m a fucking cop out there. Somewhere.”

Mestre Ginga clammed shut his phone. Dew ran down the sides of the cans. “In a sense, yes. The term we use is an admonitory; it’s an old religious expression. There is an organization; call it an order. It’s old — it’s a lot older than you think, it all goes back to that book I gave you. The Order’s purpose is to suppress knowledge about the multiverse; that it is possible to cross it, that it exists at all. I can understand why: all our beliefs about who and what we are challenged; the great religions just comfortable stories. Humankind ca

“Me, when I started looking for Barbosa, that was their opportunity.”

“You were doing all their work for them. First they discredit you; then they replace you. And when they’re finished, they walk away into the multiiverse again.”

“It’s nothing to do with me, is it? I’m just convenient, a way for the Order to get to you.”

“In the multiverse, you are everything you can be. Villain, mother, assassin, saint. Maybe even hero.”

A crunch of tires. A horn blew twice. Mestre Ginga looked up. He left the small kitchen with its lingering tang of dende. Doors opening, doors closing; voices on the edge of audibility. Marcelina felt Mestre Ginga’s bright kitchen expand around her until it became a universe, her trapped in it, alone, isolate. Heitor used to say that when God is dead all we have left is conspiracy. This cold illusion, this book of ghosts would have satisfied his hard, gloomy worldview: the whirling noise and color and life of the city a dance of dolls knitted from time and words. Mestre Ginga’s cellular lay on the table. Cellular, beer, a coffee mug for a futebol team, a book from another universe. A Brazilian Last Supper. She could pick up that phone. She could call Heitor. He alone remained. Career, friends, family had been stripped away from her like a skin peel, deeper and deeper, rawer and rawer. She should call Heitor, warn him. Pick up the phone. Press out the number. But she had said that the next voice he heard would not be hers. He would not believe her. But she might have gotten to him already. Her: the other Marcelina. She knows you; she knows everything about you because she is you. Your thoughts are her thoughts, your strengths her strengths. You are your own worst enemy.

Your weaknesses her weaknesses.

The creak of the wrought-iron gate, footsteps on the floor tiles. The kitchen door opened. An old man, hair gone grizzle-gray bur his skin still bright and black and his bearing upright and glowing with energy, entered. He wore a light linen suit, pants taper-cuffed, high-waisted, and an open-necked silk shirt. Mestre Ginga followed. It was evident in every motion and muscle that he held the visitor in the greatest reverence. Marcelina felt compelled to rise. The old man shook her hand and settled himself heavily on a kitchen chair. “Good evening to you, Senhora Hoffman. I am very pleased to see you well. I am the man who made all Brazil cry.”

FEBRUARY 12, 2033

Two by cab. Two on the Metro Linea 4, on separate trains. Two in the van, the biggest risk; two already out and ru

Efrim checked the restaurant thirty-six hours before go-day. Long tables, clean tiled floors, good food, and no one put their thumbs on the scales. Now in his Edson persona, he picks the big table by the window. The car pound runs from front to back on the block opposite; they’ll make their entrance from the rear.

Emerson and Big Steak first. Shake hands, a little high-carb, low-protein di

“Here, eat something.” Edson passes a roll of reis to the mechanics. He’s not eating, himself; he took a little corajoso when he paid the moto-boy, and it kicks in with an accompanying swooping nausea. His stomach lurches as he watches the mechanics load up on meat from the churrascaria. Keep it down, Edson. Waguinho and Furaçãio in the rig will arrive on target at the designated time. Where are Turkey-Feet and Treats? He flicks the time up in the corner of his I-shades. Fia will already have set off from the fazenda. Mr. Peach will drop her by the rodoviaria in Itaparaca; there is something headed into town every two minutes. He picked the old mall because it is enclosed and free from the eyes of cameras, but it’s big and out of the way and full of weirds and he doesn’t love the idea of her hanging around among them too long.

Where are Turkey-Feet and Treats?

Then Edson’s corajoso flickers and is snuffed out. Six cops have just come in, sat down at a table, big guns at their thighs, and are studying the menu.

Two good-byes.

“Hey, my mama.”

The custom in Cidade de Luz is that every sunset the women come out of their houses to walk. Singly or in pairs, by three or fours, feet encased in sports shoes worn only for this social occasion, elbows pumping to maintain aerobic capacity, they pace a time-hallowed route: the winding main road, the old High Road that runs parallel to the rodovia, the long slow ascent of Rua Paulo Manendes where by some economic gravitation only car-part factors and veterinarian supply stores have taken root. Men too walk the walk. They set out half an hour after the women and always walk widdershins, to meet the women face-to-face. They are invariably younger men, or fresh divorcees.

In the fast German car, Edson caught up with Dona Hortense and her walking friends outside the Happy Cats Veterinarian Supply Company and cruised in to the curb beside her. Dona Hottense peered under the brim of the white pimp’s hat.