The Cityln

CrimsonCloak

by Asli ErdoganTranslated by Amy Spangler

Soft Skull Press . Brooklh I.IY. 2oo7

The Ciry ih Crimson Cloak

Onginaly published in the Turhsh languaS€ as &mzr pELr'nli (c'to 1998 byAsli Erdoed

translation O 2007 by AhY SPangler

IBSN,1 933368_74 8ISBN 13:978 1 933368 74 0

Book Design by Luke G€rwe

Published by Soft Skdl Pie$55 Washington St, Suite 804BrooldlmNY11201

Libraly of congress in Publication Data available from the Librarv of

For Eduardo, who was killed by a snay bu et in Santa Tercsa...

You I coud how

when a fell away fron ne.

-Paul Celan

A TRAVELBRIN

THE STREETS OF RIO I

'Ihe people of Rio ca theit city, 'the most beautiflll place in the

vrotld. A choir reciting in unisan: "The most bautifrl place in the

vtotld..." This sentiment has been expressed in a ranety of tongues in

various farms, from tourist handbooks to exotically spiced fiIns, ftonthe conquistaAotes af the past to the carniral tourists of today who

come ta tisit in package tours. And I agee - abhough I don't really

kno1.,) haw they conceire of this thins olled "the world," I do believe

I've seen enoush ofit.

Here's a familiar, ardinary, breathtaking photograph of Rio for

you: shadowles beaches of spatklinq silveL st/etching aut into infin'

ity, the labynnthine shotes of the Guanaban Gulf extending into

the healt of the city... Mauntains, like daggers thrust into the eatth,

tip the horizon to shreds; staggering abysses; maenificent, murder

ous, rasins mad rock cliffs... Paa de Aeucat (su,at Loaf) Mountain

sculpted out of a sin+le pie.e af granite-on some dats I liken it toa thumb, an athers to a gravestone. Having pleserved its mysteries

far thousands af yearc the jungJe, despite the many ravagd it has

enduted, still a virgin bubbling with the ferven y of adolescence...

Beneath that piercing light af the tlopics and rcddish mist embracing

the slapes, a city transformed inta a land af fairytales...

I wont compose yet morc odes in praise of Rio's exalted beauty,

which has been destibed in signifi.ant detail. And in any case, Ihaven't had anything n do with Rio far a lang nme nov). Suffice to

say that the oldest image af the .ity in my nenory is ptecisely that

C,rJ ' .r'm\,ir alo. k

of this photogaph, and that I saw it for the flrst time an a paa ypnnted, thtee cent postcard. In a wo/d,I was en hanted. tt was the

rocks that impressed me most; .ontempafaies of the earth itself, ash

gruy, bronze, .opper, riolet, btick .olored rorks standing thete likeKulptutes of a lethal natian... I.lad I been of a tuore sentimental cast,

I would have bunt the postcard ih the fiame of a .andte and cast the

ashes into the valley of Santa Tetesa, frcn when e the gunshats rang

out. But l,I just lostit.The anly thing I can do now is to wish those destinett fat th. nost

beautiful city in the warld a joulney sans mishap ar nisfortuhe. Iremind then that all dhentures in Btazil have a bloady ending, tharsince the 76'h centwy these satage lands have gotten the better afevery voyagea hatum scarun, gaQ hunter, ahd daringly mad heartedsoul to set foot upon then. I advise them not ta forget far a singte

moment Rios re@rd highs in AIDS an.l .time statistxs, undet no

cir.umstances ta wandet about by themselves, not to wea. a wat h,

gold, or any jewelry that rcsembles gald, ana tu tuke ercry kind ofrctional pre.aution to keep the bload of the eity from splatterins upan

them. And alsa ta watch the sun set an imryessive but shortliv.dspectade in the tropi.s- from Cal.owdo (that hi h,ith the fanaus,giganti( statue of Jesut, and most definitely to try the fresh papaya

And then therc is the Rio of jaumalists, international did arya

nizations, human ights advo.ates, a/ganizations without baderc.'mb is a city a third of whose populotion lives an the rerge af stdrva

tion, a city up to Xs ears in cline, a .ity whnh g.aws fat from its tradeih cheap mulatto flesh, .a.aine, and atms. AII six hunttred of its hillshave been appropnated 4i the ravelas, and hundreds of thousands ofhomeless people are scattered upon its streets like so many rusty ndils.

A pla.e of trholesale muder; reckless executions and meningitis and

AIDS epidenics; Candeldria Cdthedral, with its garden where streetthidren fa.e the finng squad; Cangs of Uzi armed robbets rciding the

bea.hes: "justi@iros (purveyors of justie!) who donl know enoush

arithmeti. to ewn keep a tally of the peopb they have killed... Well

intentianed, munificent, and ctedulous aryanizations tryine to prctect

(lion whon?) a people overworked, underfed, exploited to the very

marraw of their hones... With a derilish wink Rio laughs them all off.

She knows that they will be quick to give in, that on@ their @ns.lenes

haw chalked up a paint or two, they will retu.n to the infinitely boring

First World, whi.h, working with the eflidency of a waund'up clock,

is as cansistent 1n rationing out pain as it is in doling out pleasure.

pd&ed full af mosquito bites, intestinal parasites, and mematies af

quick fixes, high .onvenien.e, hygienic aAwntures... As far those nat

yet satiated, she watehes v'ith great amusement as they, wotn ta a

ftazzle, escdpe to Nicarugua ot to the Zapatistd legions. mat elusire,

friuolaus. ffiftatious ttxkster, Rio!

The magnificent Rio photograph and its negative are a pat of

masks, nothing more: anly two of the many and wried.ostumes that

the city, hame of the cdrnival tradition far hunareds ofyears, has be

decked itself in. Ihe Rio that I dft going ta tell you about, howere. ka labyrinth established an mote than two dimensions, ot, to be more

exd.t, a senes of labynnths inter.annecting on the planes of time and

space.F l of dead ends, blind spots, hidden rooms, frightening echoes,

.onvulsiye |9rithing, ydgue pted|tioas...

ln a little bit yau will walk out onto the strcets of Rio. mis willhe a jaurney within atrow runge of o cteature that makes its mon-

strosity felt dt each dnd every moment: the sten.h of death's breath

enstantly in yaur face: eyes laden with darkness I petrcrsity ah.iays

just a step behind... As if you ale leaning avet a well and suddenly

r.ali2e that the treatute is stalking you. .. you will ehtaunter the hu

nan body as dn illi.it gift intended to ingntiate, set upon the miser-

abLe throne of desire s realm. The ldiacy, in.onparable beauty, and

n.xtinsuishable fire offlesh:a light, volatile, fickle life, and a death

C,tt in Clridv'n Clorl

It was twa yeals ago. At a holiday eelebratian in the gheftos I saw a

waman, wrapped in rug' her legs and backside eompletely exposed. (It

toak me severul minut* to figure out which sex she was). She loaked

like saneone who had been lescuei tuo hte llom a .on.entration .amp

and r.tas destined to pensh within a matter of days. She could have

been in her t@enties, or just as well in her sewnties. She was issing

most of her teeth, and her elbows jutted out thtough het skih. She was

doing the sanba. Ecstatic with pleasure, roanng with laughter... Her

face alight wlth that inno(ent, pure joy seen only an the faces of chil

dren... And sa it is then, vrhen you lookinto the hazy, foggy, bottomless

eyes of a woman an the verge of death dnd yau @nfiont happiness,

true happin*s, that yau will have plunged into the labyrinths of Rio.

Henceforth, in return for what you see, you wi pay in kind wlth your

And naw what you-and I-need is a bit af.oulaCe. As nuch,

perhaps, as you ned before plunging into dark waterc, ol laying down

yaul cards in a game af poker. Don't faryetl It is Rio de Janeiro that you

a/e up dgainst (Did you know that its name means 'January Ri!er"?)

A dty gtown so adept at the gane of endless eoin.idences, eren the

devil is .onsidered a mere amateur in .aftparison. me nanent she

makes you believe that she is bluffing, she whips out the ae of dia-

Nou close yaur eres. I m gaine to silently .aunt to ten. When I say

ten,youwillbeinRlo. Tis a pin] that I wi notbetellingyouwhenyou

should open your eyes.

FIREWORKS DAY

Tturelet, who arc you?

What k it that you seek down therc?

-Thus Spoke Zarathustra

She had finally succeeded in beconine a real vaCabond, haring upped

and dlsappealed into this South Aneriean city famous fo/ its nudersaf strcet (hildlen, and its tarnival. Indeed, she had turned out to be

ane of the nillions af ast-about drillers on this planet, one of the

lost souls left to the mercy of iron fisted fate. An adventure-lorinE gal

from a eood family, the once small, delicate, flightened younE gitl has

now become a consummate rcgue. She no longet falk for fairytabs,she &n walk the strcets alone at night, and she doesn t brag about

the beatings she tdkes. Here in this vi(ious dty, sprawled upon the

ground os if her int$tines have been riwed to pie@s, not even in the

thought of death does she find solae.

She had crcssed aceans, truuelsed the equator, and set foot upon

a pie.e af land about whxh she knew absolutely nothing. Elerything

she Ieft behind, she had fed to the flames. And what canfronted her

upon her arrival was a universe defiled and debased to the .ore. The

ald ways of the ald world no lon4et applied. Value judgments vtele

how tike the heary, useless pieee of luggage she haA carried aver fiamTurkey. Its bottom worn and stulfy, its hdndle about to (ame off, it's

been left ta rot away in the dampness af the trcpi.s. Abandoned until

that @ntinuously deferred return.

when the life defying gitl chose the warld s nost danger

.us .ity, her sale intention had been to glance into the depths ofhumankind. To look llom a safe distan.e... Instead, het hair went

up in flames in this he that she faced of her own volitian. Rio de

.taneiro si.ed its stupeliinE anarchy upon her, its days of white hmt,

City iD Crinson cloak

its nilhts fu\|ofpronises, threats , .atesses, its muderc... Its ]uti now

bereft of its muscle power, its indiridualitt hanging aff af it in tattets.

An army that hos been routed and lefr Xs wounaed behind...

The ound o gurt're.tarled up dgdin rli "r on, e: I sta' rled O/grrjunped, and the giass in her left hand fell to the floor. Her en

tire body tensed and began shaking, as if she had been given an

€lectrical shock. Sweat was gushing f/om every pore ofherbody,but at the same time she was freezing co1d. Caustic tears welled

up in her eyes yet failed to flow "Enoughl Enoughl I can't take itanlmore! My God, put an end to this torture, nowl Can t you see

that I've no strength l€ft?"

Her nervous attack iasted only two or three minutes before

she gathered herseu together again. With the attentiveness o{ an

ex?ert, she lisrened to the monologue ofthe semi automatic. As

sooDas she understood that the gunfire was comingnot from the

fare?as as ghettos are cailedjn Brazil-but tuom the valey dghtne,rt to her, she decided to go inside. It relieved her to see rhaL

not one glass was cracked, and that not a single drop of tea had

spi ed onto her notebooks Wh€n she realized, what's more, thatthe sweaty 6ng€rs of her right hand had tightly.lung to herpenthroughout the duration ofthe attack, she smiled.

the two huge /drelas located on Santa Teresa Hill, on the siope

leading dovm to the jungle, had been at war for ejght days. Since

the junta period, around six hundred of the &,e/as, which had

turned Rio's extfaordinarily beautiful face into a massive pock

nark, had been under the control ofCommando Verelho, one ofLatin Amedca's most powerful criminal organizations. Every day

was riddled with conflicti competing gangs would rip into one

anc,ther over the divisio. of cocaine shares, or the poli.e, dissat

isfied with their own ki.kbacks, would cary out Eids in units of6ftt armed to the teeth.

Who would've guessed that the worst war that Ozgrir was to

see dudng hef two years in Rio would break out in Santa Teresa.

Since last Saturdat the sound of infantry guns, Uzis, and hand

grenades had ushered in the day and.ontinued throughout. Two

nights ago, she was in Santa Teresa, famous for its bars, and as

she wandered its deadly silent streets lined with detun.t lamp

lights, Ozgiir saw half a dozen buses their headlights dimmed,

cranned full of soldiers, long barrels hanging out of their win-

dows silently climb up the hili. But nther than put an end to

the conflict, the army's intervention had sent it spinning out o{

Untiljust the day before, she had always conside/ed the sound

of the gunshots to be just another noise amongst many in the

non stop comnotion of Rio, just another blemish that kept her

ftom concentnting on her novel, or so that's howshe thought she

r, r{idered it Llntil thener\ouqdlld,k.began.

She was trying to determihe exa4ly ho@ this petlad of no leturn had

begun. If she aul4 anry draw the barderc and lay out its tauchstones,

then at least perhaps she @uH brinE it undet the @ntrol af her mind.

I f she had to choose a point zero, she wouQ ehoose the aay that she en

.auntercd the muldtto womdn in Copdcabana. me frnal day af Easte.

||hen all the .lacks in Rio stopped, when the heat suddenly shot up to

over forty degrees, when the .ity began to shake as if gripped by jungle

Irwas Sunday. Justan ordinary Sunday... another dayexactlylike

the ones preceding it, days swiftly passing, devoid of hope, ex-

pectation, or meaning, full of nothing but an insipid emptiness...

Although it was the first week of December, the horrid heat

of Rio de Janeiro had swept over the city wave after wave like

Cily in Crinson Cloali

a rising ocean tide. And so it was to be for weeks, months, the

temp€rature never droPping below forty Celsius, as i{ the street

thermometers scattered a1l over the city were being held in the

armpitof ayellowfeverpatient: 42,41.5, 43, 43.6,42.4... In Rio,

shut off from the ocean winds by jagged coves and precipitous

mountains, not a leaf budges during the months ofthe so-called

"dry season,'nor is its radiant, indigo blue slry stained by a single

cloud. Heat descends uponyou like madness, wraps itselfaround

your thoat, chokes you. T}l€ city becomes a huge fumace dowly

roasting humm bodies alive. Ihe sun removes the benevolent

queen mask that it had won all year and behaves Like a dictator

consumedby the desire to kill.lhe airabsorbs all the humidity itcan ard thickens to the consistency of water. Ihat fanous humid

Nowinstead of a salgadirfio-a smallbtead-like pastry-thestr€et kids beg for a cola. And so henceforth will they die of

dysentert chol€ra, or downright dehydration. All of the city's

fountains dry up, and the bodies of the homeless emit an even

ranker stench, andbecause the open-aif toilets on the sidewalks

where they dwell.ease to be cleaned by the rains, the smell offeces, urine, and rot pervades the strcets- Vendors pack up the

sw€ets cailed bombons, thei chocolate covered .ashews, theirbanana ftuit rol1s, and replace them with cold beverages and

fresh coconutjuice. "c"lada, gelada...'l"lce cold,Ice cold...") ftepeople of the .ity are drained of their strengthi p

sations, even breathing, slow down as lif€ struggles to take its.ou!se, lurching along like a river that's beginning to dry up.

Conversations in passing, on elevators, in waiting rooms, on

buses, all begin with the same sentence: Qrc.dlol/ (Whatheatl)

Flom th€ colorful advertisiDg posters plastered all over Rio,

Scandinavian lookinegirls in knee high snow scatter twinkling,blonde, infantile smiles. Just as the Bedouins have apassion for

green, in the hearts of the people ofRio lies apassion for snow.

Bythe first Sunday ofDecember, thePeople of the city had al'

ready either scrambled to the beaches or escaped to the mountain

villages. Time had nearly come to a standstill lhe houre slowly

lost their grip, drip dropping away like beads of sweat ln the

Santa Teresa valley, which had otherwise withdrawn into a deep

siesta, gangs savagely exchanged shots

ozgur's home consisted of a long and nanow troughlike

hving room, a kitchen that she had named "the coflin ce1l," and

a bathroom full of leeches that she jusr .ouldn t bring herself

to kill because it made h It was one of six stu

dio apartments in the grandiloquently named "white Villa,"

pretentious columns and all. .]11e slope looking onto the Santa

Teresa valley was so steep that while the bal.ony in front was

at least three meters above the ground, the windows in back

were at ground level and opened onto ajungle full ofweeds and

thornybushes. Carnivorousants, lizards, grasshoppers,winged

.ockroaches the size of a hand, and sometimes ev

wild cats would suddenly barse in through the windows, which

shc had to keep open day and night because of the heat once

slie herself jumped out the window and tYied to make her wav

rhrough the jungle, but her hands and face wete covered in cuts

rnd s.ratches before she even made it two steps Although she

knew that no animal larger than a cat could possibly make it,{,cr those bushes, the nocturnal noises coming from the garden

.r ared her senseless. She didn t have the money to purchase a

1.,n. lhough revoltinsly rich, her miserly swindler ofa landlord,

l'rolcssor Botelho, had depdved his rentefs of air conditioning,

u'hi.hwasas vital here as central heating is in Stockhoim Hewas

rli. risht wing mayor's chie{ advisori he lorded his highbrow edu-

.rrrrn and unadultetated European roots ove/ others, and would

)it' 1,, great lengths to assume a noble air and the eljte manner

Ci!r in cn,nron Cloar

isms befitting the dignityofhis forefathers. Moleover, he was a

neat freakj he worshipped rules, order, design. He had adornedthe side of the building looking onro the gard€n with Creekgods of snooth narbie, lamps reeking of paris, and an elegant

staircase thatglided down through tbe banana and mangotrees.'Ihe apartment furnishjngs were yet another concrete expres,

sion of his gilded personality. Into Ozgrir's living room werepiled a huge ugly bed hard as concrete, alumjnum bookshelves,

a fake leather chair couch mongrel that looked like ir had been

pilfered from.ity hall, and in the middle ofall rhis rubbish had

been placed a hea!1,, elaborately de.orated mahogany tabte to-gether with eight .hairs that occupied an ex.essive amount ofspace And rhFn therc w"" ihe hammock. rne srn" qur non oiRio houses, which had been strungacross thebalconyj strings ofshells hanging fron the door tintinnabulated at the hint of theslightest breeze. (A..ording to a Brazjlian belief ofAfrican ori,gjn, sea shells bringgood luck.) On thegraywalls, reminiscent o{hospital or courrhouse corddois, hung ablack and white posterthat Prof. Botelho had bought from the New York Metropolitanand had so very meticulously framed. A close,up photo of theslightlyoily lookingparted tips ofa kissing couple... On.e upona time she had found the dull, hazy, virtually omciai eloticismof it titiilating. Especially on those nights when, in the highpressure, suffocati.g atmosphere of the house, she per.eivedher loneliness to be a being outside ofherself, a being beavy likemercury, growing like suds, bubble by bubble, spinning out ofcontrol, approaching the point of explosion... On those nights,she wanted to pless her lips against those of the tie-bedecked

man in the photograph. Not to kiss though, no, morelike a hun-gry chi.k reaching out to its mother's beak.

Herc t am in this semi-savage land, all alone, an unfahiliar feetins

of beins both free and besiesed brctring within me. (Lonely, alone,

detelict, tusnnL orphaned... I ean list any number of adie.ti'es,

b t I .ahnot build a bndge between words and reolity.) The absolute,

inpe@ble, infernal fteedom of havins nat a sinste person who needs

me, ot anyone loaking after me... I can brandish the lies af my choice,

fabicate the past that I lang for, purcue the nost sinful af fantasles.

Once I w ensured a slick geta ay out the bd.k doal, I n .apdble of

onmitting the mast abominable af ctimes. I reall in a book an.e that

if you open the doat of a canary's cage, the canary instdntly makes a

dash for the windot'.. Yet when the window, too, is apened, the canaty

makes what is-arcrding to the authot-the wisest .hoice by rctun'

in g to its cage, and thus escaping .eftain death.

Sonetimes I pursue a liactured nemory to the othet side of the

Atlahti(. me .ontaurs of the past fade away and disappeat ih the ruw

light af the trapics. me o.ean, that petulant, starmy, immartal acean

has wnquished all of ny seas. The sereans of parrots naw offet tuore

evocations than the sound of seagulls.

Giving up steeped tea for f'kered coffee, wrcstling with the wares

of the Atlannc rathel than sttiking out upan the waters of a calm,

humble inland sea, dreaning in a Latin laneuage. .. mese are changes

that I eould oljertome, but there were alsa losses that cauu neuel be

replaeed. 1n nat referring to 1'/hins su.h as white cheese, sage tea,

ot the Basphorus. My lonlings are much simple/ thah that. For ex

dnple, cherries... Sametimes I lie in bed and inagike a bowl of dark

red .hernes cavercd ih a thin layer of ice. Ah ercti. fantasy of sorts.

:la plain, uncomplicated, rdw. I miss the .hanging of the seasons

lhw the leaves adotn themselves frtst with streaks af led and then

hurst into flane before slowly rcasting in the heat of an internal fire .. .

t tow one marning they suddenly fall feeble and float to the grouna

Walking withaut a thaught as to ny destindtion, with purple lips and

rhc naltheast wind whipping at my fa.e... That incomparubb first,

htter sip of tea when the .old becones unbearable. In the heat of this

-t

20 C,ry ,n Crnnso. Cloak

infernal February, I even miss the snow, which I have ah.Jays despbed.

me snauJy beech forests, tun&a, steppes that I harc never seen... me

thetmometer hasn t dipped below fotnj in six weeks and the air reeks

of leather jackets. And then.. . I miss walking as I please, withaut hid

ing my watch in my baE, without clinging to my purse ani constantly

wakhing my back, without fearing a handgun that cauu be prcssed

ta my forchead at any noment... Sleep evisceruted by the sound af

gunshats... Mt eyes arc always wide apen, I'm always alert, I smoke

one .igarctte aftet the other, but na mattet what I do, I @nnot stop the

@nstant trembling af my lips.

But fur all of thk, I ha1,e nade sane gains, too. t da not, for ex-

anple, have ta eatry an lD, the barc that I go to ate open until hotn-

ing, nobody natices that I dan t wear s bru: in fact, I don't wear any

undemeat on days when it's over forty degrees. I have pleated skirts

that ride my ass, ngtu sharts, and thongs, and I like to wakh my bady

in its belatedly acquired femininity. I rewl in the feel af my hair, u,hich

hasn t been touched by scissors in a year, scampetlng along ny back

like wild toks. (tf thls tity wercn t so windless, if I .auld have shaken

a[f, far just one nonenL my dnxiett at the prospect of being dishonest,

then I wauld have written of how much t enjoyed the feeline of my hait

"beingtouslea by the wind. But Ria is wlndless...lt daesn't breathe,

that is, it laeks a spirit.) I can dance in rcstaurunts, bars, on sidewalks,

smoke on buses, and sleep with any man I want. Here I am allowed to

indulge in the most rulgt of ny desites ta my heatt's content. I @uld

even hire an assassin, if t auld .one up with four hundred bucks. Or

could it be that I miss those mi stanes of the OId wotld, millstones

which ate part and parcel, pethaps the very buttress, af my self?

Fly back to yaw cage, little canary, fly ba.k to yow .agel While yau

still have time.. . For that open window is yaut abyss!

She found this text while flipping through some old notebooks,

tucked between her topology notes and Portuguese verb conjuga-

Arli E oEan

tions. She must have witten thatpassage durjngherfilst dry sea_

son in the troplcs. she was fondofthat innocence o{sorts, which

sbe had by now long ago lost, that .hildish naivet€ concealed

beneath herwhimpering. "l neverhave beenable to overcome my

loneliness," shethought. "Butitseemsiike I have grown outwalds

from it groidn enough that I .an Map myself around it. lt is llke

a fetus within me now,like a m€dal I wear upon my chest.'

She was sitting at the table before her notebook, in front of

her a beer glass full of Brazilian tea that, no natter how long itwas left to brew, never grew darker than the color ofstraw;lost in

thought, she was.h€wing on the pen that hadbecome an exteD

sion ofher verybodt a third, prosthetic hand. she felt the roorn's

ritless heat work slowly into hel body, unraveling and diffusing.

llcr breathing became erratic, her thoughts chaotic, like blind

bats. A new wave of sweat covered her body with each sip she

took. She could detect the acrid slnell of hel underarms, the an

,,oyingstraps ofthe house dress clinging to her body, the taste of

.hcap tobacco in ber mouth... "Point Zero' delinitely had to be

written before the day was through.

Just then she noticed that the gunnre in the valleyhad.eased

.,nd been repla.ed by the farelds' favorite rap song blasting out

,,r a boom box. '?le e/d um bandita nas era um bon npaz... (:"He

!v.rs a bandit, but he was a good suy...') She was amazed to 6nd

ihat the song, a wonder of shaloMess, penetrated her heart, and

thititspast tense in particular caused hergreatpain. Shegrieved

rI de:rh.frhis binditwhom she did not know lhe voice o{the

rt.gro singing the song was deep and sorrowful, and it smelled

,)i ltuDpowder... It arose tuom the land ofsemi automatics where

,l, ,rtbs are a dime a dozen, and Ozgiir knew t^'eil andgood that the

i,,ser,like her own fri€nd, was one of the good guys, th€ bandits,

wln didn't have long to live. A memory from memory's many

,(ophasi... Another song... Another heart-rending song... She

Citt in Crimson Cloal

began turning the pages ot lhe City in Cnmson Claak.

FIRS? DAY 1N RIO

Ria had uelromed her with faggy weather and a lead sray sky, Nhi&

immediately thrcw her for a loop, for she haa sttuck out on het journey

lrll af tropical dreans. She d plappell herself into a taxi, teeteting an

the edge, exhausted after eishteen sleepless haurs of flisht, and lis

tened disintetestedly to the drive/. Like a pa/rct the nan repeated orcl

and over in &eadfrlEnglish, Ria is the most beautifulplaee, the nost

beautiful plate. She had just lit a cigarette when they hit the favels.

Thousan]s, na, tens of thousands of de.repit hauses piled on top af one

anather, extending fat miles, all the way ta downtown Rio. Rooness

cabin s, shantie s of bn k,.a b oa, tin, labylinths sunk knee de ep in

It didn t take long for Rio to teach her its first lesson: no longer

than it took hel to smoke het firct .igarctte. me hnA upon which she

had been born and nised had protectei hel fton fdllins off one of

Iife s cliffs, inta the ghastly depths of squalat into whi.h hunankind

sanetines des.ends. It was beyond anything she could hare imagihed.

A po@erful sense of faleboding whispercd that she was on a tlain that

had run off its track and ias hurtling forwad at fu speed, that this

.ity whxh fed an human sufferinswould be the end of her. Ho,xever,

they quickly rca&ed downtown, followed by the most beautiful place

in the world," Copacabana, and it was then that Rio de Janeiro toak

her captive, with its cares of stunning beautl, its sa1'age diffs, its

tropical rerelry. She forgot d about the laeelas. In d snap, just like

that and just like the niddle class citizens of Rio did, too.

She had gone to the only address she knew in Brazil, to het pro'

fessor's apartmeft. mey had let her knaw tight away that she wasn't

Nanted: they didn't eren gl,re hel a room. Hours later, they took pity

an the pale faced foreisnet who'd fallen asleep in a chait anA tuld het

thdt fal the tine being she could sleep in the samber servant's room

apening onta the .ourtyard.

k was dark aut when the sound of druns awoke her. She couldn't

figure out where she @a9 Was she in lstanbul, ot an the plane? The

sound of a dozen dtums playing out a lhythm sa jubilant, so peerless,

sa extlaodinaly that it brought tears to one's eyes... A penetrating,

nelancholy male wice broke out in sonE. me voice had ta belon' to

d negro, and it nust haue been .oming flan the fringes of the city.

It seemed to be familiat with all of the gutterc, the quagmires, the

sndps of the whip that life serves up. And that's when it hit her they

were in rhe trcpics. She was standing on the edge af an ocean, on the

threshold to a .ompletely differcnt life. She was in Rio de Janeiro. She

immediately wanted ta take the frrst plane back hone. But that voiel

She felt a st/ong desile to tun barefoot into the future; an urge ta draw

het swo/d and tun her horse at fu gallop, straight into the fomidable

ltont battle line of life... This, she thaught, was prabably i,hat they

neant by "joie ae rir/e.

she downed the last dregs of her tea like a true Bavarian. Her

rhirst hadn't subsided at al] On days when the temperature rose

ibove thirty'seven, it didn t matter how much fluid she dtank,

hcr tongue remained like sandpaper. It was as if everything she

,lrank went straight to her stomach, without even so much as

,,rrapingherpalate. She had never before experienced such thirst,

., thirst that was unique to the ttopics. "'Ihis tea just isn't doing

rhc trick," she grumbled. "l need somethinS coldr watermelon, or

she knew perfectly wel that warm tea was better relie{ in this

l,, it than a .old soda. She had leahed the hard way just which

, L,l{'s one must follow to make it through the dry season in one

t'lr.c, like drinking a halfpint of water every halfbour. Delicate

.1,,(l capricious, her mis-created body did not befit her intrepid

24 CirY in Crimson Cloal

sou1. Her Caucasian blood, with a dtop or two of Mediteranean

water mixed in, had given her a ghosdy white skin that moaned

bitterly beneath Rio's cruel sun, a nearlv t/anslucent skin o{ the

t?€ that the negroes caled "newspaper .oloted " Asthma at-

tacked her constantly on the dust-bathed streets, andbe'ause of

atlergies caused by vermin, she itched atl over dav and night' as

if thousands of ants were storming up and down her bodv Her

stomarh couldn't handle the acidic tropical fruits, or the oily

Brazilian {ood. And what's worse, shed r€allv given hersel{ free

rein, tuming a deaf eat to aI warnings, eating and drinking at

food stands that smelted of urine in neighborhoods where all

kinds of epidemics, {rom meningitis to AIDS, ran ranpant, and

so she had been infected by amoebas and invaded bv intestinal

parasites time and time again

Her ktchen had been uder the occupation of fiuit fiies dd ants

for some timer cans of.om with a nastv liquid ooz!1g out of them

wele stewn right and left She opened the reiiigentor, more to c@l

otr than to look and see what was inside Ther€ was nothing but cof

{ee, apiece oI Minas cheese a aLstant SouthAmerican relative of

Turkish white cheese-that was starting to tuln yellow, and two

lemons that were starting to spoil. She hadn'tbeen shopPing for

pyobably ten days at least. She turned on the mud clogged filter

that had be€n left behind bv the previous rentet, awkwardlv

wielded a hammer, andbegan to break offpieces of ice from the

fteezer. As she struck at the ice, all of a sweat, she grew angrv

with herself once again for not having bought an ice trav or a

filterin a1l the months she?been rhere, cursing her incorrigible

"couldnt car€ 1ess" attitude. She placed lots of i'e and some

sweetener in a glass oflemonadej she turned to go to the living

roon with het drink, which was in no wav sufEcient reward for

her efforts. She was covered in sweat and had alreadv lost more

liquid in acquiring her drink than the drink itself 'ontained

She

Asli Erdotan 25

lit a cigarette and deposited herself upon the fake leather couch.

'fte salvo of automatic guns had ceased, and the syncopated

rhythm of an indolent pistol took its place- Three or four shots,

silence, three or four more... Shots of a weary gunman with no

intention of killing, just unabte to endure the sil€nce. Ihe con

nicts in Rio were nothing like those that she had seen in the mov

ies. Banditos did not lavishly rain down bulets like the ruthless,

bo1d, superhunan Holllwood gangsters; they were frugal, they

took their time. One day, during her second month in Rio, she

was sitting in front ofa theater pretending to listen to the street

actors' conversation when she suddenly found herself caught inrhe crossfire, wedged between some nadly dashing car thieves

end the police in hot pursuit. Experienced Cario.as, as the people

of Rio called thenselves, immediately threw themselves to the

ground; ozgnrmeanwhile leapt to her feet, cigarette jn one hand

.rd gudldnn soda in the other, and with the curiosity of a child

8etting her 6rst glimpse at a piranha, stared after the car rob-

hcr, whowas hanging out the f/ont window from his waist, firingnonstop. She ex?ected his ey€s to be huge, covering nearly all ofliis face and tul] of dread like those ofa game animal. But his face

, x pressed not even a hint of fear.In fact, his face expressednoth-

,,g. Llke an arlow unleashed from the bow, the man concentrated

,)rcntly upon one thing: Hitting the bull's eye. Ihe only things

I', hadwithwhich to stop the carofdeath trailing after him were

r 11rn and steady fingers. And naybe the amulet he never failed

r ' like to work with him in the mornings... the more intense itlrr i'ne, the more his fear of death nust have been fading awayi

' ', ,, h like unhappiness does. Roberto grabbed Ozgny by the waist,

r,r,kinghertothegroundandsavingherlife.:ll,e picked up a copt of O 61010, which, including the Sunday

, .,'rs, wejghed in at over one hundred pages, hoping to find

' ,,, thing that she had not yet read. Column after column of ce-

lebdtynews;love and romance, gossip, soccer, dispassionate arti

cles on politi.s, hackneyed, ftivolous op eds, astrologn personal

ity tests... prostitution ads.-. mulatto panthers, blonde, blue eyed

"European tr?es," whip'beaing Amazons... An engraving of Rio

in loud colors and distorted pe/spective, Meaking utter chaos

the city would usualy request a third page since the twenty mur

dets that-according to governmcnt statistics-o.curred each

day did not fit on the two pages already devoted to 'Violence "

Ozgur would scour those news items, taking down notes with a

statistician's meti.ulous passion for bare facts. Journalists whoA

had their tongues cut out and thet ears cut off, housewives

who'd been riddled with bulets because they dared to hold onto

their purses, street children castrated and th€n murdered by

th€ police... fte chi ing stories, packed into only three or four

sentences, moved her profoundly. She identified both with the

murder vi.tims as well as with the gangsters who were captured

by the police. And she also sensed that, deep inside, she derived

a kind of pervetted, highly criminal pieasute from it all. In Rio

shehadtastedtheeroticinhumanblood.Whattmore, therewas

some kind of relief iD knowing the dreadful dimensions of the

pit of quicksand into which she sank. Death, when reduced to

numbers, ceased to be personal tragedn

Maia de Penha (41): cauEht in the midst of an armed confliet on the

bus; trhile the rest af the passengerc threw themsetues to the flaor, she

.''.as squished ta death in the turnstile.

Another Maia (13): She sk@ed s.haol and went to the beach,

wherc she was sh.)t in the head by a st/ay bullet: the autopsy rcvealed

that the gltl @as pregnant. Both het kille/ and the fathel af het baby

An interview with street kid Joda (9):

- Your favorlte book?

Asli Ellogln 21

My fust srade reading baok. I've never read any other books.

People you admire?

- Pele, Ranario, Aytton Senna.

- Yaut best feature?

I prcte.t girls liring on the strets. I dan't beat them.

Your worst feature?

... (Pauses)... 1 euess... tobbery.

- Who do you want to be like?

- I ve never known anybody .. . good enough to look up to.

Cirt in Crimson Cloal

111e weath€r report said that it would be thirtt seven degrees,

sunny with clear skies in Rio. ln Istanbul meanwhile it was to be

rwo degrees with snowfa[ "If I were over there, I'd be wanting

some salep," thought Ozgiir. Shedjust finished offher lenonade,

but the rustytaste iD hermouth remained.

Towaids the end ofNovember, the laneuage school lrhere she

Bave English lessons let out fot summer vacation. Tlis also put

rn end to the miniscule sense of order and duty that had given

Ozgur's days, which otherwise dangled in a void ofnothingness,.one sembiance ofstructure, much like thebandages that hold a

,nummy together. And so now she almost never set foot outslde

li.,r house unless absolutely necessary. She spent two days a week

)living private lessons. From the break of dawn through to the

,r jddle of thenight she chasedafterstudentswhowere constantly

.hirking.lass, canceling without letting her know ahead of time,

,,(l straight up vanishjngi it was usually a struggle wheedling

, , ) r,aid bils out of the debrors, and she had to resort to methods

,,,drpletely in.onsistent with her personalitt everytling from

ILr.rts to fawning and flattery. Ihe following dayshe would wake

r 1, rround noon, and then only with the greatest difficulry After

.',i uDeasy sleep constantly interrupted by nightmares, slumber

rl,,r was more like thrashing for her life in a bubbling swanp,

air! in ( rlins.n Cloxk

she would 6nd herself drench€d in sweat and mole exhausted

than she had been when she first got into bedi her eyelids would

be Slued to her eyes, stubbornly refusing to open. She nevet

remenbered her dreams, but she knew that every nighr-.'eD,night-she wept quietlt sobbedsilently. Ihe tears she shed then

wele her truest- her most sincere. For several minutes she would

be unable to tell where she was in fact, wio she was and she

would rub hereyes, dazzledby the pjercing noontime sun, and rry

to return to reality. Orperhaps she wouldn't try, for in the end, a

reality even nore horrible than the most horrendous nightmare

would cruelly seek her out. she would then re.all with infallible

certaintythat she was in Rio de Janeiro, and sighing more deeply

than usual, shewould sit upbe{ore makingherway to the kitchen,

all the while spewing a litany o{ Turkrsh profanitjes, hel mouth

tastinglike an ashtra, Once she'd placed the teapot on the stove,

she'd walk back and like an emptypotato sackcollapse backdown

onto her wrinkled, smeily, damp sheets. First .igarette of the

day... That first cigarette, filling her lungs with insidious, compas'

sionatesmoke, asshepreparedtofa.eanotherdaydetetminedto

take another nick out of her sou1...

A beer mug full of tea and two more cigaretles... some more

tea, some more cigarettes... Put on some ftesh tea, oPen up an-

otherpack... Too lazy to empty out the two heapingfull ashtrays

frorn the previous night, she would slide over an empty can le{t

over from the last night's dinner and lie down on the chaise

longue. Managing to $inkabout absolutely positiveiy nothing of

any.onsequence whatsoever, avoiding any analysis or inte4teta'

tion regarding he! seti nasterfully drawing a curtajn ovet all of

rhe de.isions she had to make, she would stare at the wall, her

eyes.losed to the outside world. AI o{thehours belongedto her,

but not to be used to be spread out like a corpse in the etemal

void that they contained. After several pots of tea and a pack of

.igarettes, a cramp would enter her stoma.h and she would feel

a pang nuch like that which accompanies the feeling of hunger,

a feeling she could hardly recal anymore, and so she would eat

! piece of Minas cheese with some of the flat b/ead they called

'Arabianbtead" in Brazil,justso she.ould continue smoking. She

would spend an entire day jn the chaise tongue,like a sentrywhois under no.irumstances to abandon his position, moving only

to shift her weightjust a bit when the pain in her tailbone became

unbearable, wjth her glass and cigarettes always within arm's

reach. If a person has strength to do nothing else; if she .annoteven take her eyes otr ofa blind wall and reach out for a book; i{she cannot turn to look at the banana trees or the wild jungle inthe Santa iheresa valley; if she is in no condition to smile at her

most innocent, cutest childhood memory or grow sentimental

at sundown, then steeping tea and smoking cigarettes are vitalactivities. the lizard with which Ozgiir was shanng her house

would stand motionless upon the "Kissing Lips" photograph all

day long; as iflost jn pro{ound thought and with understanding

.'. r would rrk" long'ingFring looks ar Ozg r. Jn "noraou.

.reature as silent and inanimate as itself. It was as ifboth o{ theD

had just couapsed at their final stop on thjs earth, sick and tiredofthe emptiness, of the banality o{ the world, hopeless and indifferent and utterly exhausted.

It was only at nightfall, when the neighbors' raucous televi

sjon 6l1ed her cemetely with fake screams and lauShter thatshe managed to pull herself together. She ate a can o{ corn and

t)lopped down in front of her novel. Ihe night progressed; Adeiino

in apartment four cuddled his saophone, the hopeless dream

hcd been aspiring to for yearsi the dogs of Santa lheresa began

to howl; the sounds of pagoda-a dance rhythm and gunshots

hegan to ring out frcm the fa,elasi the parot of Joao in apart

inent six cussed and.urs.d in outrage at the cacophony. Finally,

Cirr in Cnnson Cl.al ll

the sound of lovemaking corning from the floor right above her

drowbed out aI the others. ltie laughter, moaning, and nailng ofthe women naned Rosanna, Lucy, Katja, and ftais as they took

thef tums-the man was always the same, Marcello-enveloped

her. Despite the exhibitions o{ these coup}es who, iike all similar

couples jn Rio, are determined to prove to all mortal souls that

sex is the most glorious pleasure to be had, LOVE had no place in

her witings, did not even seep through in its most symboli. form-'Ihere was always DEATH on the white pie.es of paper 6lled with

scrawled tetters, scibbling, arrows darting to the right and left. A

death, constantlt rearing its bead, thrashing about in an effort to

right itself, struggling with al1 of its might to dp through the web

of blue ink above it-.. Amongst those .ircles and Lines called the

Latin alphabet it strove to come into being, to emerge from its nat,

leveled, smoothed over universe andseize another dimension.

"How to explajn Rio de Janeiro?" she numbled to herself.

"Which Maria's story should I choose?' this city offered way

too many specta.les, way too many contladictions, way too

many tragedies. She was constantly running into freaks, torture

wounds, corpses, and sex... ]}e magnificent Ipanemabeach lined

with "the world's most expensive ' apartments, and right behind

it, the three hundled thousand person Rocinha, the world s larg

est fa,ela, resembling the hunchedback of a crippled person try'ing to ight himself... Writing meant first and foremost putting

things into order, and Rio, if it were to be dennedinjust oneword,

was CHAOS. Trying to captuie it was like tiackjng an extremely

cunning, predatory bird in a rainforest full ofpoisonous thorns,

crocodiles, and anacondas. Which words-wfi ose words?-could

she use to descibe hunger to a sophisticated, educated someone

who had never experienced hunger, and who would be sinkjng

down in a.omfortable chairand doingthe least rjsky occupation

in the world-reading?

She thought of the foreigners tossed into rropicat waters bythe northem curenrs, caught in the net of tuo a .ity whichhad devoured each and every prey that landed in its lap, easily grinding theh to a pulp. European names ins.ribed in hermemory, echoing all the sorrow of migrationr Ronaldo, Mara,l.othar, Katja... they tended ro their wounds in coot climates,unaware of the roles, large and smalt, that they had been givenir Ozgiil s novel. Ronaldo, the platnright who marked ea.h dayI hat he had to spend in Rio otrthe calendartike a convict awaitingnlease... Because he was a devoted Buddhist and a true aserul,ird because he never went to parties and he despised drinking,,l.rD.ing, and noise, in theater circles he was considered to be',r.rrk raving mad- Before the first two months were even up heA11! ked himself up in his empty room tull of inc€nse and soughtrl,rr.rpy in the form ofmeditation. .'superfi.iality

is in a state of

'1' drnic all over the world, but in this city, it's a religion,,,he usedr,

' :iy. With nearly identical desperation Mara, too, had reached, ,

' i ( tr t the saDe conclusion: "I've found superficiatity everlvhere

'v,.s.t foot in theworld, but here, it'sbecomean artform. Maraanthropologist. She had spent 6ve yeals traipsingaroundAmerica, had fought in Nicaragua, and had lived with

.'v LJr tribes in the jungle. Rio had managed to do in even thjs1,,,,l]l,ry, leserved academic, this harsh, steel,wilted, no hotds_I ' , , I I woman. After a love escapade that pushed her to the vergeLr nlc, she quit her stud, entitted something tike ,.Mutatto

, l',.rr,) Women ln Brazil and theil Relationship wirh Their OwnlL ' L"., h.tfwaythrough and headedbackto the drearygray skies.r , , " rrive London, now completelyin doubt ofhervalues. poorI r ,'.,rril! had been knocked out flat in a viciously real arena, mu.h', ', ,,.,1 rhan rhat ofany thesis or analysis or institution_the,'.',,1 rl). body. Another weathered Nicaraguan warrjor named

I ', ,, l, rrcd to his ple,Rio life as his .Age of Innocence.,' fte

C ,tv ,n cflnr$n C loal

licentlousness had swouen his ego to the verge ofexplosion. " Ihis

city sucks the willpower right out o{ yal hed numble mirth

fully after ea.h night of amour. Ihe well-intentioned, small town

beauty Katja became seriously d€pressed for the lirst time in hef

life a{ter beins seduced bya married man who then vanishedinto

tbin al/. "lhink only ofyoursell" shea told Ozgur, back when shc

wrs still quite innocent, quite the novlce. "lhis city is lethal to

foreign women. Learn to love yourself, because nobody else will.

As a respite from their worthless loneliness, a feeling that could

not possibly be shaled, they d embraced each other a.d raken ref-

uge in rhe consolation oftheir mutual sympathies. (And this was

a much morc potent pain reljever than love, especially the only

kind ofloveyou could find in Rro, because itneverwounded yout

pride.) theyA gone to great lengths to adapt to this .ongenial,

caprjcious, indulgent.ity; they'd rushed to and fro, dashing ftom

one.on.ert, dance, political rally, /arela, and most ofa1l, promise

oflove, to the next.Itwas impossible to getyour fi1lofconsumlng

what in reality you djd not need.

the telephone rang. ozgur flin.hed, like she did when the

dunsh^rq 'rnq ^ul. bul h, h m"ined orh"rwi.e nor ,".ponsivp.

Hei abstraction from the outside world had increased together

with her loneliness; she had long ago quit running io answer

€very time that attentjon hungry contraption squealed. Whats

more, thanks to Ptof. Botelhot incomparable stingjness, she

had to share a single line with five renters and all of their lov'

ers, siblings, cousins, servants, etc. She looked at the constantly

tembling receiver that croaked like a frog and was at least twenty

years old, perhaps even one ofthe first models availabl€ in Bra,il,

and coolly calculated the possibilities. Her mother only .alled her

on Sundays, fireworks day. Whathad started outas weeklyphone

calls two years ago had over time grown i.creasingly less fie

quent, and the teaty eyed conversatlons of longing had become

( rricatur€s of themselves.Ihe caller also couldhave been any one

,)f the countless men aged between fifteen and 6fty who, having

, hecked offa[ the names in theirlittle bla.kbooks on this dreari-

.st ofnlghts, had decided to try tieir luck with the cold semolina

lirrkish woman. She was so sick of calls to go out to dinner, to

loiningueira Sunday dances festas, bars, "un chopinho" ("one

lirde bee1"), or motels that she could almost puke. At the very

worsr it could be her landlord celling to "discuss the matter ofher

,,verdue rent,'or Lizboa. She had met the latter, a happy-go-lucky

.rwyer from Copacabana, about a year and a haF earlier when

.hc still spoke only a smattering of Portuguese, when he dialed

rl,c wrong numbe. Ior some reason hed become obsessed with( )?ciir. Hed call every Sunday and go on and on for at least an

l,ou' in monologues about his prudent success at work, his bed-

r,nm adventures, and his burgeoning young lovers, all the while

' mphasizing details such as how forty nine people atteDded his

l,irthday party, oi how he had slept with 6ve different women in

rhc last three weeks, with all the philistinism ofa nouveau riche.

ril,. knew the Cano.as well enough bythen to know that he wasn't

Lyirg. She understood very wel the loneliness of this veteran

wornanizerwho was only able to open up to a woman whose face

ri, liad never seen: a loneliness concealed behind numbers, and

which the owner tried to eras€ in crowds of idle onlookers and

'Li,)tel rooms rented out by the hour. Or maybe it was Eli... Could

, r really be E1i who was caling? No, impossible!

Shc made her decision at the last minute and, springing from

rli,,couch, grabbed the telephone just as apartment six's answer-

,'Jt machine was about to pick up.

'' Quen estd falando?"' l,el-o. l-want ro ralk-ro- OZCUR.

llcr mother pronounced each word deliberately in heavily ac

,,.,,rcd Enslish,likean an.hoMoman readitg the news to the d€af

andmute. Ozgr! felt a spark oftruejoylight up inside ofher'

"Hello, I want...""Mom, it's mel Don't you recognize my voice? Why haven't

She hadn't spoken Turkish in so long that her voice sounded

odd to hernow in her mother tongue. Like she was mumbling in

her sleep. No matterhow much her motherprofessed to the con'

trary, she was .onvinced that she had a.quired a slight Brazilian

accent, and that her diction was off as well

''Is that you? Oh, good. I}Et man, what s his name, Joa or

something, he s always hangingup on rne. I m sorry I haven't been

able to ca for a while. I had to go down to our summer homei it

got nooded. How are You?"

For sevenl moments she was ar a loss for words; finailv, she

Iet out an indifferent, "Same as always And how are you? what

"I'm thinking ofgoing to Moscow in January Touls have got

ten really cheap.I'm solrt l.an'ttalktoo long Thephone billiast

month cost me a good three milljon."

Ozgiir didn't respond. Her mother's words rained down upon

her blain like ttansparent bulets. A steel hand had wrapped itself

around her head and was yanking her forcefuly to rhe ground.

'Ihat f amiliar nausea...

"So whatt up? h€t mother continued, obviously struggling to

Iind any questions to ask. How are you feeling?"

'Awful. I'm not eating.I can't."

The truth is that she was hoping that her mother would be

able to compreh€nd the vital difference between those last two

sent€n.esj she didn't..You've cut down on the smoking I hope '

"I don't ke€p track.'

1rl, Erdolan 15

A prickly silen.e o{ Porcupine proportions. I}le mother and

daughter became aware of the Atlanti. Ocean separating them

That they spoke without salng anything, so as not to say any

lhing...''whar are you doing in that awtul city an)'wav? whv haven't

you come ba.k yet? I mean, you're not even doing anvthing over

there, just bumming around You've dropped out o{ universitv,

you don't have a job, you're always whining about being broke

You're risklng your life for nothing Here you've got evervthing, a

home, a ca/... We can go to Mos.ow together i{youwant.".She

s trying to bribe me,'thought Ozgur' 'Shek afraid to take

rl,e trip by hetself.'

''l m comingback," she said.

"When? lfyou corne before January

She interrupted her Dother' She was now talking with a me-

, hanicl device, the old battered plastic object that she held in her

"l m coming back. As soon as I settle accounts with Rio I{

I run away now I'I be its prisoneY foreve(. Do you understand'

Silence...

'''Ihis .ity's kiiling me, Mom, every dat every minute every

,,fportunity, in every way, it's killing me Slowly, insidiouslv

l)l)wn deep... lt's taking away evetything I have, right out of my

lrrnds. I m surrounded, besieged, outside and in I have to Mite

llro.I don t really thinkl can explain . "

''I can't hear you. ltt so noisy ovet there. those fireworks

'!'iini I was tellingsome {riendsabout itthe other day About the

r.,vollos in Rio...'Ihey're cailed favollos, right? About how everv

riL,Dday theylet off all those fireworks so thebuyers know that the

w,.ek s supply o{ cocaine has arrived About how the whole citv

I lhts up with lireworks... Nobody believed ne lhev don't know

36

tuo so they asked me, naivelt why the police didn t do anythlnq

"What FIREWORKS, Mom? What FIREWORKS?',

Her rage unleasheditsett rushing forth ar fulgalop. Srraighttnto thejungle, full of insurmountabte, thornybush€s.

.Don't you hear the machine guns? those aren,t fireworks,th€y'r€ MACHINE GUNST For cod's sal<€, can,t you even tel thesound of gunfire fron fireworks?"

Wlen, after a long, sorrowfuisigh, hermotherbegan to speak

onceagain, hervoicewas coated bya thin layer of ice. A nofthenwind blowing in from a snow,covered Istanbul...

"What's going on over there? More mjljtary operations again?

Look dear, you re Dakingme si.kwith worly. youjust up andteft,just like that. Turned your back on atl of us... Are you in tou.h

"He hasn't called since September.'

"He's mad at you for dropping out of school. Alt that stu.iying just so you can throw it a away and loaf aroundt He doesn tunderstand what you're doing. But then, he always has been an

For some reason, Ozgii! feit the need to stand up for her

"But he did send a suitcase ful of.lorhes. And sohe T,,rkishdelight!

Of course, she didn't say that the ctothes were too heavy andconservative for Rio. And she didn't btane her father for nothaving noticed aU these years that she never, ever ate Turkishdelisht.

"He sent De Turkish deli ght-lakun . Lo.kun .. .',

She felt like she was roling a big, sugar coared pie.e of tokufiaround in her mouth, su.king on it gently. There was sometbin,lfunny about the way those letters "O," "K," and .,U

came together.

She let out a giggle.

''lo krh. Mint, iose,lemon, Ant€p pistachio...

"What's wrong with you? Are you cring?She could hardly speal."No, I'm laughing. It's tunny, isn't it? that word, lo-,krn?"

Burst o{ laughter, bubbles jetting to the suface of a boiling

"Look, your nerves are all a wreck now And I don't like the

sound of that gunire one bit.""Oh now, why do you say that? I thoroughly enjoy it. I mean,

Iltazjls {amous for jts armed clashes,like Tulkey's fmous for its

/ofuft. Don r you pay any mind to all that talk about camivals and

She began to laugh again. Inside she was telling h€rs€lf that:ihe needed to put a stop to this and legain her (onposure. She

.Anlvay, I should go now. Do you need antthing?''Ihis was the question she disliked most of all. Sh€ alnost

screamed, "Yes, I need a 1ot of thingsl" If only she could stop

Lrughing... 'Most of all someone who asks ne what I n€ed." Sh€

.Okay, then. Bye...'

"Mom, wait. Are you going to call next week?

''I doubtit. Maybe when I getbackflom Moscow Okay dear,Ilriss you so much youknow Take care now."

''Mom, wait a secondl'

there was a long, verytong sil€nce.

.Mom, please, please don't leave me- Talk a litde more," she

rl,ought to herself. Instead, she giggled.

''Okay then, God willing i'I see you in Moscow in January-

Ciry in Cnmson Cloal

'Hoslraftal. Goodbye non.'she held onto the phone as if it were a dead bird and con-

tinued listening to that expansive silence that is so much nore

meaningtul, so much more agonizing than words. lt was as ifshea gone deaf. 'fte word "HOS CA KAl ricocheted in her

brain, like a pdsoner pa.ing back and fotth in her cell. ihe tak

tak rhythm of Turkishk crisp, evenly paced sylables in militaiy

mdch... Unlike Rio Portuguese, which was reminiscent ofa brook

flowing hopscotch ovei pebbles, Turkish announced its meaning

without any dilly'dallying or attempted seduction. 'Ihe moden

day fairytale knoM as communication had disintegrated, drop

ping flake by flake ftom the telephone wites, like the powdered

srgat on lokun. She felt a chill within as she went to heat the

teapot on the stove.

Seized by a sudden and irresistible urse, she sat dom at th€

table, not even waiting for the water to boil. She tided a brand

new, untou.hed page: "HARBORLESS VOYAGER." She wrote

non-stop for severat minutes, hardly even pausing to breathe.

'Ile unpunctuated run ons ofa writer lacking even the resolve to

complete a sentence...

She wlote until that impulse that transfolmed her pen into

a pair of shoes dancing by themselves on the stage of a farnous

musical had expired. She began to scratch the large chery sized

mosquitobite on her elbow. First gendy with herpen, then swirl-

ing the tip of her finger around the bump ofit... But rather than

subsiding, the itch gradually grew more and rnore intense until jt

was nearly unbearable. Sh€ angrily pressed her dirty, long 6nger

nails into th€ vely centerofthe redbulge and, with the rancorofa

farmer ddving his pitchfork into the cracked earth, ripped at her

skin until a thin trail ofblood oozed its way down to her wist.I}le burning had fina y subsided.

she reached for her pack of cisarettes once she heard th.

teapot start to moan. There it was, anotlet sttoke o{ bad luck,

!nother disaster to top off an alreadymiserable dayl She had only

rhree cigarettes left. She b€gan violently rummaging through the

ness upon h€r table, as if her life depended upon it, searching

for a spare pack. She had de.orated the mahogany table, a reflec-

rion of Prof. Botelhot aspirations to nobility, with the cheapest,

nrost common o{ objects Iacking even a shred of distinction. A

true specta.ie of squalor consisting of a twelve dollar "made in

l'araguay ' tape player, dusty cassette tapes collapsed in heaps Like

soldiers, bandages dangling fron their wounded bodies, warped,

steam srained teaspoons, tin cans full of cigarette ashes, used

l)ind aids, salt shakers that had failed to stand up to the hurnidiry

,il the tropics for even three weeks, screws, nails, clothespins, bat

r .ries, pil bottles... Papeys of every length and breadth: newspa'

lrrs, magazines, cinema progres, tickets, posters, uset's guides,

worn sketch books, old photos as sorrowful as ships put oD the

,,tocks, unanswered letters from people whose very existence

h. now doubted... lbe pistachio green notebook containing Tle

t itr in Crimson Cloalr... Pens, ubiquitous, str€wn everywhere...

ri, ishells... Pincers, screwdriver, .oland€r, can opener; tools and

r rrplenents snall and puDy, yet of \,'ltal imponance in the home

,,1 i bachelor... In nore experienced hands this m€ager mini-

'L,rrwwage'working proietariat of featureless, unaff€cted objects

w, { d have mutinied against Ozgiir at every opportunity, putting

, t) i melciless fight for its freedom. It was no user there were no

|.,rettes to be found in this rat's nestl 'Ihree cigarettes at on€

it.,rette every ten minutesj that meant that in less than halfan

l' ,1, r she would hav€ to go outside and look for an open kiosk in

, 'r1i

Teresa, where the confli.t yaged on.

World weary, she collapsed onto a chair, but only after having

i. fl.n a fresh cup of tea o{ course; she picked at her mosquito

,'i,1,.rs she lookedoverthe house, iike a young wonan searching

city in Crin\on clodk

for dues about tle boy into whose bedtoom she had entered for

the first time. A kind of writing exercise...

She was a veteran migrant who had long ago leamed that a1l

of one's "indispensables could 6t into a single bag, that the lest

could be tl1rom to the wind. She got absolutely no satis{action

out of claiming places and things as her own, or making them

into reflections o{her p€rsonality.In this house, pervaded by the

rotting odor ofthe tropics, there was not a single non tunctional

thing, not a single item intendedto appease the aesthetic senses.

Like avase, curios, flowers. Justas she had hatedbabies as a child,

as an adult she avoided what she described as "feminine" it.ms

like the plague. She was so broke that she had no television, no

washing machine, no chandelier, no mirror no carpet, not even

curtains. By means ofa new technology that she had developed,

she used the cornices to hang her laundrn she resorted to this

because hangins laundry on the balcony was included in the

twelve articles o{ prohibited acts t}?ed out on a t}?ewriter by

Pro{. Botelho himself. Her clothes, which be.ause ofthe humid

ity never dried rega/dless of the temperature, and which gtew

dirty once again before she even had a chance to take th€m

do n, were quickly disintegrating, rebelling at the seams. Bui

then nothing .ouid stand the humidity of the uopics for long.

Fruit spolled in a few hours time, milk went bad, the soles of

shoes carne unhinged in a month, clothing grew noldy in the

wardlobe, books, falling victim to the attacks of a1l kinds of

tungi and ba.teria, wilted away.

She ran her eyes over the books on the aluminum shelves as

if to bid farewell. Fifty caretullt selected Turkish books-shed

calculated one book per week, thinking that she would be hetu

for one year second'hand English novels; the only Portugues.

book sh€ owned, which she had bought because of the Naz,n,

Hikmet poem it contained on the 6rstpage; Boal's prison diary. .

'nre bloody eyed, bloody-toothed snake man, an Indian god that

Roberto had brought ftom Amazonia, had tuhed his back to

lbtstoy and was glaring at Ozgnr with eyes full of spite at having

been plucked from the rainfoiest.In the coyner stood her sullen,

bulky suitcase, like a boxer of past glory who has not been in

quired after for some time....this

house is just a shelter {or me," she thought. "Where I

really live is a spiitual place that needs no ornamentation."

Months ago she had changed het mind, de.iding against her spy

like bound to secrecy attitude, and, like a cancer patient trying

ro add a friendly flair to her hospital room, had hung upon rhe

wall something of sentimental value to her a ballet poster. Yet

i,r less than a month's time, one day when she wasn't at home,

l'rof. Botelho had comebyto check the apartment; he had ripped

rhc poster {rom the wall and tossed it onto the table, whicb he

rrcated as a trash can, andleft Ozgur a note advisineherto review

rhe 'list of prohibitions.' (So it seems that Prof. Botelho did not

rrust his renters'taste and thus preferred to maintain amonopoly

L,pon the right to decorate the walls.)

tt was a dirt cheap, black and white postet made af ukra thin cad

hrq.d: it i4ras sa poo/]y printed that the dan.ers facial features dls'

i pted like ArubX letterc dissolvingin wateL It contained the name of

ttithet the photographer not the ballet, but she re&gnized the lattet

t r t oudidtely: Orpheus. Saldlrcntne s Orpheus. Passion. rcbellian,

,r t I d csperatian transfotned into stulpture, be.oming concrete in the

t \ t l..ted matian af two people. .. Etetnity captu/ed in a singb matian,

"\t ho1 a single noment... Humankind s fleetine, desperute, absolute

She .ould imagine it light therc before het lery eyes: Togethet

' rth his pure blaod German Shepherd os@r in tow, and the enen

,,r \r dcvated, pwe blood Rio mulatto housekeeper, her landla

C ily 1n c mson Cloar

marches in with all the pomp of a Ronan warlord ana has a taok

dround the living roam: dll the mosquitoes make hin feet queasy

and so he covers his nase with a handkerchief ta carcfuny inspedthe books and flip thrcueh their pages; he chooses a wark af MarcusAweliuq with the tips af his noble fingers he ips the poster off the

wall and dispases afit.Ultimately, by purifyihg her home of symbols and nyths, ahd

destroying the sale prcje.tion of her saul that it @ntained, he had

taughr he/ a lessan: A mirrors dre empty in the city of vanpiles. Inthe fa@ of so much nuder, tarture, and death, he had shown het the

cledulousness af seeking refuge in aft, ahd in so doing haa indicatedthe empty walls. Those matte, whitish walts, their plaster swa en

and crccked, their surface .overcd in spideNebs, rivulets of the btood

of dead nosquitaes, and stains shaped like hunongous tears. ..

\,{onths later a< she rcrd whJr shc had wr r en. Ozgur re, rJ"o a

coincidence that had up until that moment completely escaped

her miod-that3la.k Orple"s was the first 6lm she had ever seen

tbat had to do with Rio. Amusi.ian hailing from the fd,elas, Btack

Orpheus goes after Eurydice, naking ajourney in the Rio ca/nival, where mass hysteda, death, and chaos prevail; with his guirar,which is able to open locked doors, he descends into the deptlsofth€ Lard ofthe Dead and reunites with his lover in a rituat ofthe Aftican religion, Crndon,/a. But at the very moment he has

defeateddeatb, he opens his eyes, which he was slrpposed to keep

closed throughout the ceremony. Too earty,like every Orpheus inhistory... Only the guit& ofBlack Oryheus, a man fated to perishin a Fareld, would remain.

Ozgit had lit up her last cigarette and was staring into thewhite walls. She felt as ifrodents were gnawing at her hearr. She

was angry at herself for having used up the teteph

tion shed been awaiting for so long like that, and for not havins

p,cked up ayound the house that Sundat and for never manag

'rg to have a spare pack o{ cigarettes around. 'Point Zero" was

rrrarching in place. "l haven't really lost all hope as long as I can

.irill write,' she thought. But then ?7Id Ctty i, C/inson Clodft isn't

.xactty a text to be read with Chopin's noctumes spinning on tler,,cordplayer, and it can'tpossiblybe so; because where I write, it,s the sound ofgunshots that ptays in the background'

Her eyes lingered upon the pen hanging fron her Angers like

r pack animal that's be€n worked to death llen she wrote her

',.,n" ,n huge lFllFr< in rhc !Pnler of an "mpw p,ge: OZGIIR

(|REE). shed always hated her nane,like she d hated all blatantly

,n)vious slmbols. Ihere probably couldn't be amote absutd, nore

r()ni. name than hers; it made one an object of tidicule in onet

,)wrl cyes. For several minutes, the amount of time it took to

.,, ol,e une.isdrerre. she drpw. hllrng rhe.nird" ol rhe O Four

l, if clovers, sku s, treble clefs, innnity symbois

Suddenlyshe satboltuprightinher seat. From the pile upon the

,irch she choseablouse, which was bla.k and therefore concealed

,Dy tea stains, and a pair ofjeans dpped at the kne€s She didn't

l,ive the money to buy a new pair ofieans. Shed tried to patch this

t,rir up but failed, and so she ended up having to live with the ever

il.,ping rips, assuming the attirc of a punk while standing at the

rl,reshold of thirty. She put a ten /eal banknote in her wallet Sh€

, (, mpiacently noted that atl together she had lifteen reair to see her

rlrrough until Tuesday. She loaded a few lightets, pens, her sun

{ n en, wristwatch, telephone book, and keys intoa bag the size of

., ,inill suitcase. And the good luck neciJace of seashells, which had

1,r,ven useless onnumerous occasions, and hergreen notebook

She always carried her novel with her, like an amulet, and

lvhcnever she wanted to retteat to her inner world, she would

write, regardless of where she was. on the bus, at a kjosk, on

rl,, beach... the gunshots had stopped, and tranquility reigned

citr in Crinson Cloak

for the time being. She hid the last bit of cocaine, which shea

conceal€d in th€ pages of Hops.otcft, and her pocket mirror in the

secret compartment of her bag. She knelt in front of the door

and prayed that.he mrke it throuSh rhis iourney rn one Di'cP.

when she was seventeen years old shed jumped up in religion

class one day and declared that sh€ was an atheisti all the other

students glared at her lik€ they wanted to skin her alive. But now

here she was, unable to male the slightest move in Rio without

first imploring the very same gods that she had denied her entire

life to keep her safe.

"FIREWORKS DAYIOh, how naive I was back then." Otiginaly

she had attnbuted the frr€works that soared into the sky from

some six hundred fa'eids every Sunday to the Brazilians' love

of life, and sh€ had been in awe of this exubelant people. It was

only months later that she leamed that the fake shooting stars

announced the anival of the latest batch of cocaine. "l wonder

what it was that I lost that day-the day that I 6gured out what

that 'shiny labydnth' in the sky realy was? My innocence? No,

now, come on, nothing that could fit into such a bulky, insutrer-

A TRAVELERIN

THE STREETS OF RIO II

A trolreler aimlesly wandeting the streets of Rio, ha'ing taken

t , fuge in her own self like a snail rctleats into its shell, feating the

l minent pistol at her temple, her mouth like sandpaper, taking

t t .mulaus steps, larse .ircles of sweat at het armpits . me hoti2on

nas linited by her fision, and she had nothing she could trust except

lnr het own weary eyes.

me jungle, which had been the single, unconditional ruler of these

Ltt ls not so long ago, only thrce centuies or so, was still therc: it made

, t :. "oi.e

heard throush the iron ba/s surlouhaing the huge apattment

tr t lding. on every bit of these lands upon which the European had set

t,, 't , bearing his bloody crcss-and sword, feveL torture, tuber.ulosis,

|t'hilis-he had been defeated by the trapics. The White Man, wha

,tld not entlule the junsle, the chaos, the unknown, and who sought

t ' ' .lvc, resolve, and rule eterythlngin whi.h he meddled, was dragged

) t t ' t t a.nibalism, into insanity, an these lands. me vopical hunidity

t t k d its @ay into the matlaw of his bones, and his moral fabric dis

' t n! nted under the sun and in the ruin. 'Ihe Gad who abandoned his

t,ty rn son on the class, and the onewho dis@vercd the tiffe, failed

t ,h lt\t African Eros, anl sa he put him up for sale, sullied hin, and

ttr tt I hin into d rnme. The rhythns of the Cand.otabl' fused with

t, I ttt :t. lanentations, and the crack of whips.

t| this .ity, which lies Aircdly abow the Trapic of Capneorn, all

ttr tt' t::ihilities of humankind are there beforc yaur lery eyes, as ift' | , t t t hcing olfercd up to a lisitot ftom anathet Planet... The black'

' ttrt, tndiah'@hites, lndian black mulattos, Japanese, lndian,

I t,rt. (;c/nan, and the Sta,lss-who established colanies on etery

City r. Cranso. Cloak

hill that even faintly resembled the Alps... Os'ltncos, as the Syrian

Arabs who brought desert meladies and ielikofte-neatba s fiiedin a dacked !'heat coat-to Latin Amen.a are called... Ihe dark

Nordestinos (No/tteasterners) through whose gullets pass noth

ing but .offee and .assava rcat, and who migtated lran fle sertoes

wastelan* wherc feudalisn percists to this day... me Bahiano,

coveled in the bloody .]:ws of fury generations af slavery... The

Anazon natives, h,ho haL,e the most impenetrable eyes in the world. ..

And all other possible combinations... Blacks with indigo blue eyes,

Indians with stnw UanAe hdiL Japanese with Afiican lips, Arabs

vtith Kalmyk foreheads... Every .olot and tone passible to the skin ofhunankind... The olor of .innamon, the eatth, brcnze, nilk, coffee,

The dizzying analchism of the bady... Bodi$ that hale never

leamed af mystely, that have nevet known the thousand and one pns-

ons of noraliry, thi& s@eaterc, boots.. . Alwats flesh and lively, naked,

stipped of myth.. . God bestowed unto these lands an endless summer,

an endless youth. me colorful skifts af wonen binawinT in the wind,

the natijuana smoke enveloping the beaches, rhythms risihg ftoms.or&ing sidewalks to 1r'/ap thenselves around hips, desire throwing

itself otf of diffs like a rapacious bird... A city capable of breathins

in the stam of sexualitl: Rio de Janeiro. All,tays naked, yet always

masked... Alwoys sated, yet always ravenous.. .

THEMADMANOF

SANTA TERBSA

Beyond a celtain point there is no return.

This point nust be reached.

Karl<a

Ar hrst, that indispensable condition of the vagrant life, penury,

, ,rtcred her life ever so quietly; like an insidious tumor that un

, L,,r8oes metastasis and then overtakes the entirebody,itcaptured

l,,i soddenh utterlr and completely. when shesotfired&omher

r,'l) at the university, she hoped to work as a teach€r at any one

,'l thc hundreds of English schools located throughout the city.

11'rt as it turned out, things did not go as planned. A1l of the good

r,,1,s had alreadybe€n talen by Amedcan summer adventuiers or

v,Llrure like professionals who had dedi.atedtheirlives to English

L suage teachins. Nobody trusted the oddly-named woman from

, , ountry that nobody could identify on a map. ftroughout the

',!,nth of January and its forty degrees in the-shade weather,

..1i. had jumped onto buses packed tull of people, the air heary

wrrh human odor incessantlyen route, traveling {rom one neigh-

l,rliood to the next, from morning until ev€ning, writing vari-

tr,r..v.'s amongst the swooning passengers. She d had interviews

,!rrh a series of ever-so-.hic, ever so haughty directors. Ihey

'!, rr young professionals, in love with theirbusiness cards, theil

l,i,rs heldhigh as i{ to show offtheirAdam's apples, who believed

r, rhing Englishto be the most important job in theworld-and, , r oo, undoubtedl, was everythins else they did. What with her

,.,lred purse, worn-out shoes, and hair that hadn't been touch€d

l,y s.issofs for months, they had the pale woman sitting across

i,,',n them pegged in a split second. And then there was the one

l.'rrgoage school that she managed to get hired by after much

l8 city r' Crinson cloak

strenuous effort, only to swiftlv get the bootbecause she refused

to coddle the students and because of her persistent' know it-a]l

university professor attitude Andso, after shedding rnu'h blood'

sweat, an.l tears, she got a few private students' most of them

engineers who were lonety and therefore depressed' and who

had developed an incestuous telationship with theiv computersi

thet eagerness to learn English, however, $'ouldbe quicklv extin

guishedas soonas she turned down their dinner invitations And

so sradualy Ozgur €nded uP having to cut ba'k mo'e and nore

She could no longer even consider bulng new cloth€s' or soins

to the batber or dentist or out to eat; abashe'lly she bargained

with vendots at the lo.al bazaars, she read the newspaper only

one day a week, and she onlv attended shows and concerts that

were ftee. the polar opposite ofthe classic stoies ofimmigYants

who gradualy grew fat with we.lth in the New world' her journev

sot staned in the cityt darling neighborhood, CoPacabana; Plain'

"middle ctass"; she'd mapped out her toute along the Botafogo

and Flamengo gu1fs, with their abundant chutches' hospitals' and

supermarkets, from the shores inland, straight into the heart of

the city. From the white-skinned touristv, ait-conditioned Rio

ofappearances to the real Rio, mulatto, hushed'up' and hellish

From the Rio that gobbled up victories with an insatiable appe

tite, to the Rio that alidn't even realize itwas a 'onstant loser"

Japanese cuisine was replaced fi/st by butterv donuts eaten

stanalins up, then later by nanenolla, and Enalln once her "petjt

bourgeois stomach revolted, stark hunger' Milk coffee repla'ed

freshly squeezed Amazonian fruit juices, and hei Parliaments

the cigarette of.areel women were replaced bv L M's' the 'iga

rette of cashiers. She didn't even have enough money any morr

ro buy FREE, the academicians' choi'e, with which' in a wav' sh'

shared a name. Counting her pennies was just too much for hrtr

she was unabte to deal with that common simple' banal strtr

riuffered by nine tenths of the world's population, that malady

known as 'poverty." Un{ortunatel, that particular int€llectual

.,ttirude which doesn't personalize the issue, andwhich considers

irsclf above the physical worid, failed to sustain her ego. Out o{

thc blue she had begun goins through her old jewelry and wear-

rrg scanes, hats, huge wooden bracelets. Like lhe Africans sat' hetentiousness becomes the hungry"... Whenever her money

\drs about to run out, she would spend it more lavishl, squn-il, ring it on smal indulgences, caprices, and gi{ts to pamper her

,11o. She wou1d, for example, buy peaches that were twelve do1'

.rrs a kilo and savor them, letting their juices daip, licking her

t rrgets. She would frequent cinemas and watch film afiel film inwl,i.h silence /eigned and the setting was always a cold .Limate,

rd sonetimes she picked up all the English Dovels on a street

l"rldlcr's cart. lhen there were times when, with flushed fac€,

i,, d hand over the little remaining money she had to a street kid.' t! nding her money to "treat herseF" was iike signing a ceasefire

,r,rl,life. Perhaps itwould alowherto dJink pleasure in tiny sips,

' rl pain in tiny glasses.

t\lqay s like a crutth. It helps you stand rytight. Evety single God

nnt day she recolled this sen*ne, which she'd heard years ago fton. t I r xi driuel in Istanbul, the nisdam of which she was able to conpre-

Ir trl .nly an.e in Rio. Erery time she was t/odden down, every time

tr t\ttered someone up, every tine she hunbled helself... Every time

t,, I t s obeyed the most basi. principles of the' we'brcd"...t)|c Ftlday night, she was at a currency ex&ange affice in

t t,',,intto.She had only ten do ats left to last her the entire weekend.

tt 1! af the unfathonable bureaucraq of Brazil, an.l its paranai.l

t t t y tneasures, there had been a nix'up with het money as lt made

]t)t ham signatute to slgnature, and from hand to hqnd. She hadt ,t) Mn the money of sone pre teen kid, whon she could deatly tell

Cjly in crinson Cloat50

was an apprentie from the overallshe was wearing Exa'tlv thirtv two

reais ard folty .entavos. S he stood motionless for sevetuI secands: her

cheeks were on firc: there h'as a tuane in her eats She had two long

nights and two long days befole het and a hea\" rustv' deftpit con

s.ience which, despite numerous stunbles, stitl functioned She put

the money in her pocket As she dashed out of the affice she saw how

the opprcnt,e boy rcuatPd ftP no4cv gr c4 rc h n and road haPa

n hottot, andhaw he hPaded lot thP count?t wtth d t"d't'ul o ptPssian

She andered about the streets for a while' like a Wisan es'apee

men she do|e into the ftrst ltatian rcstaurant she saw and spent all

ofher naney-all af the apprcntice boy s money all of the thirty'two

reais and fatt centa\ios that had 'ost

so mu'h tail' on a single dinner'

mere are sone things morc indispensable than virtrc' Like lemon in

your tea, the Sunday ne'/rspaper, ot Italian mozzaftlla

'ftis was pelhaps the most heattfelt part o{ the novel Because

it was so pYo{oundly personal, she had used a straightforward'

frank, bare bones style. Yet writing faited to purifv Ozgtu of this

utterly shametul memorv fte eves of the voung apptentice would

emerge tuom the dark corridors of her memorv' crawiing like a

giant octopus, and grab her {rom behind at the mostunexpected

She had gently closed her door and glided down the staits likc

a ghost to avoid encountering the mulatto Indian portador lcarc

taker) ofthe white ViIa, Romatio she was in no conditiontolis

ten to the 6ve foot, dark complected, meek caretaker abashedly

remind her about the rent once again 'nre check shed receive(l

foi two months' work from the last school she worked at harl

boun.ed: for weeks she had {ailed to 'onvin'e

rhe bulldog {accd

boss in his Al Capone garb-cigar patent leather shoes' bowlcr

hat to Pay in cash. Actualt it was Romario whom she wanten

r,, save from what would be an embarrassing exchange for them

ll,th. After all, she was the on]y renter to whom the poor fellow

lrid shown his newborn child.

At thishour of the.lay, the hou$ewas deadquiet; the resideDts

,n ViIa Blanche, who were hardly tobe seen eversince the fightingtarted, had all gone dom to the bea.h or to the mountain villages.

At this hour, Romado must have been asleep in his dankquarters,

with his sixteen year old girlrriend and two and a half month-,,ld babn Prof. Botelho s pride and joy, the pure blood cemanrihcpherd Grarda (cuard), had vairiy soushr shade on the terrace,

which gleamed like a mirror under the sun, before finally colapsing

,r.xt to the low wall. Romario took out his persistent frustrations

r,)wards the White Man upon this defenseless animal hea leave it.rrtingout tlere all day on that hellish terrace, .ompletely depdved

,'l food or watcr. But then Ozgiir was the only one who was ever at

i ll affectionate towards the poor animal.

She was inlucktodan She had silentlyopened the triple locked

) I , rden gate and manag€d to slip out without running into a single

,,u1. It was Sunday evening, the time when she made her wrekty

, p to the small kiosk at the top of the hi[, the only nearby p]ace

wlrere she could buy cigarettes. lhe heat attacked her like an ana

,,rida, wrapping itsel{ around hey thrcat. lt couldn't have been

'rx're Lhan thirty six or thirty seven degrees; with her two years

,,i rxperience, she.ould now tell ftom the slveat that instantly

lrrrhed out of her pores when the tempelature was above body

,, ,),perature. A.ommon, warm summ.r day for Rio! But still she

',,srrntly felt as ifshe were standing right in ftont of a Turkish

,,r,r shnd, meal spinning on a spit befor€ th€ namej no matter

"'l',r h way she turned, she felt the heat...

With their rose colored, stereot'?ical phrases, toudst ha.dl"'ks described Santa Teresa as "the.enter of Bohenian life,', ,,1 i(:.ommended it only for the adventurous, or those travelins

clty in cri son Clork

on a "shoestring budget." they recommended lhe hundred vear-

old tramway that huffed and puffed its wav up the stone paved

sidewalks, and a bar naned 'sobrenatural"l thev also strlctlv

aalvised you not to wear a @istwatch, gold jewelrv, or anv jewelrv

resembling gold. An intenational scandal had broken out about

two months earlie/ when a Japanese businessman, struggling to

fend off an attempted robbery, fell off the tranwav ro his dearh

(and during Brazilian Japanese Friendship week no lessl), and

a ttamway rides wete terminated lhus was OzgLir res'ued {rorn

the vibrations that turned houses into connlsing malaria victjms

once every halfhour, and those screeching blakes that sounded

iilc the.ryof ahuge, metallicbirdbeingstrangled Unfortunatel,

buses were now the sole form oftransportation, fot no taxi dtiv

er dared enter Santa Teresa, a p]a.. famous for its carrobberies'

those godforsaken Santa Teresa buses, cran1ned full of People

like sardines in a tin, their rates determined bv their inevjtablv

high as-a-kite drivets... And as for the midnight bus! whenever

it slowly approached the bus stop, without a ca/e in the wotld

andatleast twentyminutes late, therewouldbe a burst of com

motion in a[ tbe bars as the booze guzzling Santa Teresa 'rowd

made a dash for the door, with their last beers ot ca&atas-'

kind of rum-in hand. tt would take another twenty minutes

for the drove of eighty peopte, nearly all of them inebriated, to

fill the bus, and no tickets would be issued, thanks to the un

recorded agreement betwe€n the battle's.arred ticket salesnan

and the neighborhood residents. Each person would hand over

some money according to his means, keeping the dtiver's sharc

in mind. whatever they fett like giving .. Ihe bus, weigheddowr

like an eight-months-pregnant woman, grumbied, occasionallv

coughed, and hiccupped its way up the steep hill Ea'h time ir

stopped and set otragain, the boundades between bodies woul(l

become clouded beyond recognition. Ihe voice of a stone drunk

,,.11ro wouid energe tuom the backrows and break out in a sambai

,rlrr voices, at first just a coupte, then the whole crowd, would

r, ' ,r in; the sound ofa drum would step in to accompany the song;

r, i.,lly, the whole scene would spin out of control when the old

,,, krt Laker would turn the ticket box upside dom and begin

r,, koep rhythm. A midnight festa spontaneously bornl Despite

rl! fa.t that most of the passengers were drunkards, thieves,

, \ r ,,rtionists, or drug dealers tuom the fa,slas, not once had there

, tr,r been an incident of even pickpocketing, let alone armed

,,l,l,e/y, onthemidnightbus.AtempoEryfairytaleof fraternity

,,,lcquality, with pumpkins turninginto coaches, and frogs into

Lrrdsome princes, in bloody handed Rio...

Santa Teresa was the sole hill in the city not yet overrun by

rl', larelasj and it was also the sole neighborhood that belonged

r , , . i rtists, espe.ialy bla.k artists- A res.ued zone for musicians,

,l LLers, painte$, and artisans of everything from carving to per

LIr., rescued from the pinch of squalor thanks to their skills...

, r nival kicks off here a day before its ofncial opening this is the

rily place where the birthdays of Nelson Mandela and oflegend

', y resistan.e leaderZumbi, who foundedthe 6rst black republic

' i lristort are .elebrated. Master interpreters of the samba, thatrild ofpain and father of happiness, play in the mal(eshift bars

,,i saDta Teresa. (lhose tourists wi$ bals enough to €nter the

1, .,.k clubs' after dark are hard pressed to believe that those

', *,(h rheir ro'ten t"erh "nd rrgrdg lorh". drp musi'idns.

"', ri whose nanes had made it ali the way to the northern hemi-

| ,.rc emblazoned on record covers.) With their wooden stools

' I I rickety tabtes, pools of urine and lons lines in front of faucet'

, ., rcstrooms, these bars, which served radraqa and beer on tap

,,,,1y. were always packed;and that darling of the middl€ class, the

,,,lln, sugar-coated bossa'nova, was definitely not part of the

', t!.rtoire. All the customers, except for the gringos, would ac-

nCif in Cri rson Cloak 55

companythe musicians, keeping rhvthm with drums, madmbas'

andmatchboxes, singingat the tops o{theitlungs and dan'ing' as

the samba tvned \ato pagode, the pagode \nto nara'ure, and the

nal4crte into pure Aflican rhythms.

In Santa Teiesa, land of the perpetual carnival, there also

lived a Ininolity composed of anbassadoB, politi'ians' mafia

godJathers who wanted to stay out of public view, and forrner

police chiefs who'd f€athered theiY nests; these People lived in

high waled vitlas with their guards and DobPrmens and never

showed their faces on the streets Ozgur's landlord Pro{ Botelho

belonged to this caste, as did the gangste/s who had carlied out

the greatest train tobbery in English historvbefore makingtheir

Next to the BIue Mansion-one ofthose vinas surloundedbv

electdcal fences and slass shards was OzgiiY's 'Point Istanbul

At every stop in the course o{ her migYant 1ife, from ocean shore

towns to Alpine cities of Central EuroPe' at evervhatbor in which

she had ever taken refuge, she had either found or created a Point

istanbul forheyself. Places whi.h, given the right peBpective, tbe

ight light, and undoubtedly the right mood, resenbled Istanbul

With itsbeaches separatedbysoadng cliffs, its sinuous coves that

intertwine like the streams of the Amazon, its savage locks rip-

ping into the hodzon, and its jungle like a boundless hshing net

.astover the city, Rio was cettainly nothing like Istanbul lt had a

seductive beauty, one that ltas {ond of extremes, contradictions'

and imprudence; it pounced upon her, cruellv, inebriated het'

took her fiymty jn its jaws lt had an eerie cha'm 'hout it like an

Atuicanmask, while the city o{herbirth and chiidhood was like an

antique silver bracelet, inlaid with amethvsts, subdued, elegant

proud, tight-lipped, languid. - But just here, oniv at this spot,

which she reached by walking past the kiosknext to the tramwav

stop, taling care to avoid getting too close to the wals of the Blur

[hnsion, Rio, a city that revels in the game of trickern would

,'.move its tropical mask and don the garb that Ozgiir wanted to

,ar. I]le Atlantic O.ean, galloping towards the ciry at fu speed,

,rr nranebilowing behind lt, wouldpause suddenlyin the mouth

,,1 the Cuanabara Gulf, calm its waves which echoed eternity, and

,lxll.ate its vast throne.lhere, it ltould tum into apale, coy, moss

rtron inland lake; like a cat's tongue it wolld gently nudge its way

,,ro the humble, gently sloping hi s o{ Niteroi. nre Golden Horn

,, viewed from Piere Loti...(izgiir came here every day she could muster the strength to

l' .,ve her apanmenti she d stand straight and motionless amongst

rlrt wooden benches where all the homeless, the drunkards, and

rl . .okeheads crashed. and wait for a breeze from the ocean to

weep her into the past. And usualy the breeze would come, but

, , rhe form of a desert storm. It would 611 her eyes with sand,

. ,,,iig down tint molecules of volatile memories that scatter

,k sawdust, fllckering images from the life that had quickly

.,, rk nto the depths o{ he' memory,like a ship filling with water.

it l.vant or irrelevant, timely or untimely, tight frsted, overseas

,,,,'r.rips Memories tlDt run out ofbteath all too soon, umble to

I I .,, ,sport her across ihose boundless waters sepeating her fron her

1,,:,1.. A scent, a sound, aboat horn, a pomegranate_colored sun

,.r . Swift, smooth sailing into her childhood, and then, always,

, 1,, ked door... Birds, unable to take flight though they flap their

,!,,,lls with allth€ir might, wouidbesiege her menory: onlysome

r ' rirg on the su/face and a slight-not too much, not enough

r ' l'1rrt melancholy... At such moments,ozgLir felt the desire

,, w, rt(,... Het past assurned a fa.e only after she d traced over its

I ' l, ,llines onc€ again.

Y, r beneath the .ommandeering, heavy handed sky of

r1,,. rn)pi.s, sometimes even memory" seened like a.oncePt

",,,{ tcd by men of letters. Just a woYd. A skin containing no

crll i. crimson Clork

soul, no essence... Ihe most reliable refuge in the face ofrealiry...

Ozgiir was now able to exist in a two-dimensional universe made

ofwords. In a univerce in which death was reduced to the sedes

ofietters: "D" "E,"'4," "T," "H."...

Today was realy her lucky dar for the wooden benches were

€mpty. He/ mindat peace, she tookher notebook, with its desisn

of sreen leaves, out of her purse. On the back covet of the note-

book was Mitten, "P/otef a Naturezal A extintao 6 para semprei'.Protect NaturclExtinction is forever. '

Why an earth did 1 evet choase this city that is sa 1)lciausly eruel to me?

This Rio de Janeiro, whi+ con.eals its sharp, painty teeth behind its

carnival nasks, and envelops my very self in its crimson cloak, woven

fiber for fiber af human pain...? There is only one thlng for which we

abandon safe waters and cut off our roats. Anly ane thing, fot whith

Adam rejected imnortalityr ?HE UNKNOWN.

ft utas a lonc, longtine ago. I clad nyself in the amot af laneliness

and set out to sea. At this final stop I have come to underctand that my

existenee is anly going in circles. Atmed with twa dull swards, hunched

beneath the weight of ny rust, shields. Each time only changing otbit,

nevel drcvring nearet to the center...lt is neithel desirc nor caftage

whXh drags ne fron qdventure to adtentwe. Pethaps it is the wish ta

flee, but not from my past, fot my past frees with me. Like a pickpo.ket,

lunnin,atfull speei, and sheddingleft andtight d the money aut al

the wallet he has stolen. ..

Edch joutney is a change of d'car, thats a . The pdnel uith thtsilhauettes of mosques is taken batkstage, and the golden yellow sun

takes its place. A few palm trees, flashy beaches, a univetse brought

into being with a few strokes af the brush... Cheap d6.or, a few ama

teur extras, the leading aetar akeady alienated fron the druma iwhich he plays. And the nusic? Right now, the samba.

lf the past has twned inta a lost Atlahtis, and the datk shadow ol

tlr .ity is cast oret all thouEhts af the futurc, then you arc farceA tu1 rb rcfuce in "the present.' You have na othet chaice but ta be hurled

t d Neen the sea and the jungle, between the alms ofwhites and blacks,

l i D ane bodily hun+er which is easily satisfied, but whieh creates a

t I n st worse than beforc, to the next. Cleate onta wet lips until e1,ery

| \ ) t .f yout bady gushes, tip apatt mangaes with yaur barc hands and

i k Lhe sugar [rom your finsers, puff an cigarettes as if inhalihg pure

' ' \,* n, and dah.e! Distance yourself anothet step from your very self

I i t h aa.h beat af the drun. Don t forEet! That music, that music which

|t)t you by the shoulders and d/av's you into the rcunty of madness,

t t tt hnal temnant of the Bla.k orpheus.

,l' ipproached the kiosk, which was the size of a newspaper

.r.',{l and reminded her of a gift in blue wrapping paper that,,,,i.onc had forgotten and left behind. At that point, she coutd

I' ,v(. died {or some g,a/a'rd soda and a cigarette- (Suddenly she

' , ,ll.d a midday in August when she had walk€d towards a his,,'

',,r1 looking, touristy kiosk in Sultanahmet. How t}le sun had

,, ,,,i,cd hcy back, the dusty avenue, the sesame ring peddlers...

I , kiosk sold sandwiches of white cheese and olive paste. But

l!. wisn t in Sultanahmet, she was in Beyazrt, at the entrance

r, [ .af6 where she smoked waterpipe. She was eighteen years

',1 ,r university student; nothing significant had happened

, r rl,.t day.) fte most wretched, that is, the most genuine, of., rr., lcrcsa's drunkards w€re th€ clients of this kiosk, whi.h, I L,l,ohol, cigarettes, and Paraguayan cookies thathadn't been

', lrrl for who knew how many years. A dientele of the home

L I',Ls drivers, the self made engineers ofthe small fawla who, ,

' l'. rheir living in car thievery, the .apo€ila dancers who pur

''', lows using knives (a combination dance/fight art of African

'' J ,,, rvhi.h is based on sudden attacks and withdrawals and in1,,,l, ,)t)ponents never rouch one another)... A clientele that

-1

c 'rt in Criison Clork

chose to drink standingup-that is, until they collapsed onto the

ground-.. On those rare occasions when Ozgiir managed to wake

up early, she saw how the place was covered in broken glass, and

Abarefoot,mulattoyouth,eighteenornineteenyears o1d, lay

sprawled out on rhe sidewalk, snoring llies buzzed about his

scrawny head, which looked like a skull carelessly slipped into

a leather case; his right leg was in a pool of urine, most like1v

his own. At his head stood a pure-blood Siberian Huskv, howl-

ing and moaning in pain Most street people had dogs, and not

just any dogs, but breeds like Dobermans, German Shepherds,

and Afghani Greyhounds, which was uttetlv incornprehensible

to Ozgnr. Why would someone who .ouldn't even 6nd enough

to eat for himself rjsk his life to steal a pup and raise it with so

much self-sacdlice? Was it the need for se.urjtv' or the need{or

friendship? Aftet barking hopelessly fot several ninutes-du/

ingwhich time it had scrutinized ozgiir out ofthe corner ofits

eye and realized it could not expect any favors from her tht

disgruntled doglay dom next to its o'{ner, placed its head onhis

stomach and quickly fell to sleep "Not even the most destitutc

of humans awaken as much compassion as a helpless aninal"

thought Ozglir, "lnstead, the formerrouses only a forced{eeling

ofpity, hortot, and usually revulsion Humans are so merciles's

towards theiY own kind."

Two faveladas, thef; gazes dark, stood in front o{ the tinv ki

osk window guatded by iron bars. they were leaning up againsi

the.ounter, enjoying their.old beers Ozgnr, who had long beton'

learned to always be on the lookout, immediately sensed thil

the men were uP to no good Long t shirts down to their hipr'

swank shoes, gold-plated watches . Maybe they were a couple ol

Commando Vermelho's gangsters, takingabreakbetween battler

She rather pessimistically began contemplating how she coul'l

.1, , by them and make her way to the window. 'Ihe Rio Logbook

, ,l I )i:ath was ful o{ those who had worn the wrong expr€ssion at

rl,,.wrongplace and been riddled with bulets;but she w* dlng

' ' I r h irst. Moreover, she was prepar€d to 6ght like a gladiator for

' n one single cigarette.'LIm gualand por favor e uns L.M. Lights," she yelled flom two

',, rcrs away in the most determined, most forcetul tone she could

'l,,sr.r. If this had been a theater stage, her voice easily would

L'v. rca.hed the backrows.

Like all countei workers in Rio, the Portuguese opelator of

'r, I ru.k. wro wds gorng or sevenrv. would remain inpervious

1,,,,stomers' requests, reaching a satisfying climax onlyafter he

1,,,1 rormented the petitioner sufEciently and made him repeat

,, fuquest at least three or {oul times. 'You otr your rocker?

I r r , to hell?" ozgrir had withstood plenty of injusti.e, insult, and

,",iidling, but the blatant rudeness of.ountet workers still drove

,, , , rizy. She iras.ibly began scnt.hing at the mosquito bite on

,, , r'lbow, now a bloody wound.' l\rr falot, um guarund bem gelado e uns L.M. Lights" Utterly

'., ',,rd.d. rhe man conrinued putting awrv borrles. Ozgur was

I 'i,l If shed had a gun at that moment, she would have put a

, ll,,r straight through that callous prick's ribs!'ll.y buddy, aren't you going to give me a girarahd? I've been

,,."r,ng here under the sun for a full ten minutes."

Wrtlr rheumatic sloMess the Portuguese nan gradually

, ,, irrl.d his back- He looked Ozgiir over from head to toe. He

,, I ifht yellow eyes, eyes like those o{ a dead fishi there was

,,' l.{,ndary between the ids and the white of his eyes, just lik€

, 'r, ' ,rnd olive oil jn the same glass. Ihe look they gave her was

,,, ', r ha t of dreaming that she had never existed than wishing to

, , , ','iiDate the person across from then. 'I}le Portuguese man

I ,l 1,,,,s ego lowered his blinds on life. "Professional pervert,

Crry in Crinr$n Cloak

fucking pedophile," thought ozgiir..Wait a minute, g/ingai' the man replied, squeezing as much

contempt and insult as he possibly could into four words nre

portuguese just couldn't bdng themselves to do the legwork on

these lands that they'd exploited ro the boDe, to the vety mar

row, for centuries, and so they unloaded tbeir resentment onto

other foreigners. And so now thevery thing she feared had come

to pass; as soon as the two fawlada head the ward gtinga, they

pricked thei earslike a.ouple ofpolice dogs, and startediooking

her over, making no effort to hjde the hea'y, dark, greasy look jn

theireyesastleydidso.'Shedoesn'thaveawatchoranyjewelry,

her purse's ragged but made of quality leather, dennitely fiom

Arsentina. the he€ls of her shoes are worn. Just like the knees

of her pants... Obviously doesn t have a dime to her name But

her poverty is temporary; she's iust taking a break amongst the

Iowlifes who never got the smooth start she inhedted We're born

destined to suffer, but they, they only choose to do so later. She'll

gobackto her nest, retutn to the privileges she's so easily squan

dered, but onty aftet she's given up on ac.epting the world undet

h€r owr conditions, only after she's leamed to salvage the sltu

ation with a few minor concessions. As {or us, though, nobodys

ever giv€n us anythingi and that's why we'll take what we want,

every sclap we can get."

Ozgnr's sixth sensewas now as sharp as that of an animal be

ing preyed upon in the dark. She clearly read evely letter o{ thr

hate spelted out in the deep wel of the Portuguese man's eyer'

Stil1, she appioached him with a fury she.ould not rein in lrr

a motion both childlsh and masculine, a motion she had liklly

learnedftonJohn WalDe films, she shoved the bottles aside an'l

firrnly placed her elbows on the count€r. she'd let him know thlr

shehad no intention ofleaving until she got he/gratund and dAl

rettes. She was like a gambler laying out €ve/ythingshe had, arrl

llke all uue gamblers, what she really$,anted was to lose.

"l\ guarand," she said, pronouncing the words one by one.

']{ight now And a pack of L.M.... L.M. Lights."

She felt the pencil-mustached mulatto to her dght freeze

.,,; if he'd just been tossed into a pool of ice water. She turned

r,trlards hlm. His eyes rajned missiles upon her. Shed made a

,',,rve mistakel the insolentgnnga deserved to learn a real good

, rson now l}rat goddamn Portuguesel If hed just slip her the

,4trad so she could nake a run for itl Iheir eyes shot balls of

,r at her... At that moment she con.entrated upon one single

lring: the bottle of beer that stood between them... If she coxld

l,,, ik it, bur even if she did manage to break it, what would she

,, with it... she wasn't giving a thought to the man on her left.

,,d the next movel l]]e asphalt beneath her feet had turned into

,rd, and she was sinking. She feit that bloodthirsty wave dsing, t, lrorD the depths of her soul. ftat lust like feeling, a sense of,1,,rh... Sowhowouldget!oitfirst? fteblackhandthatwasusedr,, rhc holster, or the white one that had her way with nothing but'' ' , n/ r^ond. rhfl ,lofi"d.

"drr"nng lik" m"r.ury... OzCLir

N, now looking at the world from a constictedperspective, the,'rrl.r of beer and the jugutar thlobbing like clockwork on the

, L l.,tto s ne.k... Like a.ouple about to start a waltz, the two op

t, i,,nts stoodfacing one anotherr motionless statues. 'Ihey were

r.,' irl to do the same dance but neiiher pitied the other. lhey, ,,, ,i,,thing but puppets bowing down to the city's diabolical

, 'l l)reposrerous, pathetic, murderous puppets... fte sound of,1,,r' l)ultetsftomapump gun rangoutfromthevaley.

'I l.ygri,gd. Everythinga[ right?"

i )z$rr instantly released all the tension in her bodn Like

,,, ,thon /unnet out of breath. Her muscles had suddenly

,, ',rr devoid of aI strength. She nearly collapsed. 1}le woldIrrrl, the same word tlat had almost led to herdeath onlymo-

I

I

I

rlI

l

I

rl

Cnr_ ii Crim:on Cltrt62

mentsbefore, restoredhe/ to herproPersel{ ltwas Eduardo' the

nephew of the {ormer Rio Police Chief She w" q:ve'l for now

It took several minutes for her to recompose hersel{; het hands

were shaking, her heartbeat reverberating in her eats- She was

dren.hed in sweat. fte dance o{ death remained incomplete' like

a session of lovemaking inierrupred halfwav thtoughi the body'

having failed to reach orgasm, was trying to lid itseif of the en-

ergy it had amassed trembling, conwlsions, ttembling Shed

made it through another dalliance' another lliltation' another

capoeira with the City in Crimson Cloak

"Hl. I'm Iine..." ]hen after a white, she repeated, stuttering'

Santa Teresas most likeable bum, Eduardo, had given the

mansion at the en.l of Multinho strect, the sole inberitance he

got when his father was oblitelated bv a grenade launched at his

car, over to publi. seYvice, donating it to the honeless, drunk

ards, cokeheads, renegades, and the down and-out Helivednexr

to th€ fa'rla, in a r€ed hut that he had built with his own hands

andwhich was 6lled to the brim with plants o{ the Amazon' ca'ti'

and orchids. Truth be rold, he generallvprssed out and fellasleep

on the sidewalk or in the last barhevisited each night lt was sanl

that he was a talented painter, and an incorrigibte cokehead ll{

was a vagrant thlough and tbrough; an emotional, kind-heattcd

endeaing crackpot who had indefinitely postponed settling bi$

"Baniour, nademoise e: said Eduardo with an exaggeranal

gesture, giving her a low, Japanese stvle bow He was aware ol

neither the time nor the dance of death tbat had been per{orm'rl

in theblinkofan eyejust a moment earlier' "You'retooking a lirlli'

down this rnorning

Eduardo's {ace had that grav hue that people get when thrv

havent eaten in a long time. His cheeks were sunken his cvrn

l,loodshot. A glob of snot hung out of his nose lndication of a

,ravydose ofcocaine very recently inhal€d. . Despite his disinte'

rlrating, oil and paint stained clothing, his ragged sandals with

lr is pitch bla.k to€s jutting out of them, and his head ofhair mat

rrd like a bird's nest, Eduardo still bore signs of the social class

rliat he had renounced. He did not, for example, smel lile those

'rho gtew up on the street, and every dayhegot a smooth shave

'' Bonjour, nonsieur,' OzgiiY replied, trlng not to look at the

','in's face. She wasn't easily put off by bodily fluids. Rio had ac

, , stomed her to festeringwounds, gangrene, andboth defecation

.',i.1 masturbation out in the open, but for some r

l ill repulsed het. She would have to drink hetguarand, fot whi.h

' ,r had almost sacriEced her life, there in tuont of that piece of

''Would you lik€ to buy a necklace?'

Eduardo always caftied a small display table with him; he sold

l",.rls and baubles, semi'precious stones, and astrology books, as

i. 'nood

suitedhim. Actualy, rather than se ing them, he more

,,lr.n handed them out, especially to girls he {ancied. Aftet aI, he

,.illy couldn't.are less about money an no/e''I don't have any money for a necklace."

she wasn't aware that when she spoke Portuguese, her per'

,,rrrlity changed, and she becane someone harsh, rigid, and

1,1, ,rr. She understood the language aloost perfectly by now, but

l" l,ad not yet achieved fluency in spealing She could express

I ' , ,r'li in only the most direct manner.

"lhcn let me give one to you, as a gift Choose onelTake aI o{

,,.,,,, i{ you want. Business sucks aq,wan Because of the boom

,,r,rboomboom.'

Wirh an invisible gun he unteashed a series of bulets on the

., iI., IcresaVa et andthekiosk. Ozgur leaned her head slightly

r,,' *,,rd and noisily exhaled through her nose and puckered her

Cir] in Criinsoi Clort \' r Lldogan

Lips.Itwas h€r attempt at a smile

" lhank you, but no I realy don't want one "

Eduardo scrutinized the pale faced, dejected looking gri'ga

ftom head to toe. Ihe woman's face was calm, as if shed iust

talcn a hit of opium, but the numerous lines,like traces of"aves

on pebbles, gave her away; clearly she had had her fair share o{

quarrels with life, and gotten het fair share of roughing up She

had none of the lively, flittatious mannet, or flagrant sexualitv

of the Rio wonen about her' Hers was an unde'orated, plain,

mostly lost beauty..- HeA watched her from afar in the bals of

Santa Telesa. She was always a1one, always sitting at a table in

some secluded corner, chain-smoking and scribbling things o'

napkins. A haff living monument of sorrow, with no intention

of in{ectins others with hel unhappiness. nrough she reeked of

lon€liness, she always lebuked the jackals that descended upon

her andunderno condition didshe everletdown herguard Hed

hea'd it said ofher. who was rumored to be a Slrian author, "This

woman is loneliness personified A Middle Easten goddess whose

cult has disbanded, her temples covered in graffiti " Perhaps the

inexplicable weakness he {ett for the gringa, whom he actuallv

didn't 6nd to be a that attractive, was be.ause of this sentencc'

which he iust couldn't get out ofhis head; so far, he had showered

her with gifts at eveYy opportunitv: Silver earnngs' astrological

maps, apair ofsandals. Ozgnr's ears weren't pierced, she couldn t

careless about astrology, and she detestedopen toed shoes Still

she stoyed the gifts away carefulll Nobodv except the tendc!

hearted, crazy Eduardo had given her anvthing in Btzil, though

she'd already spent two birthdays there

"'he governor's in Santa Teresa. I read it in the newspaP"

He's here to put an end to the fighting.

A naughty spa*le twinkled in Eduardos iddescent eyes A

slightly protruding, heart shaped dimple verv becoming to hrr

,rrs face appeared on his chin.

'''rhe governor and all those stiffsuits. .'Ihevre going to fuck

, t, Santa Teresa.'Ihey re going to build a police station evervhalf

lrlometer. Trey can kiss nyass Herewhere this kiosk is, too '

.Re.lly? But isn'r this a histodcal site?"

'hprp ya qoder".2ra,rru dnd L N4 Lighl'

the old portuguese man, whom not 6ve minutes earlier she

l,,d dreamt of sendjng to Never Never Land with a single shot

rl,,ough the ribs, was finally handing over the desired goods'

orr]ur feltashamed. Theviolence that had grown in herheartlike

.' jtahgmite ever since sheA begun to live in this city ftequently

r,r,k over the reins to herbeing She hadhorri6c, stomach- chutn-

, ig fantasies that she just couldnt reconcile with herseu Like

i,,l.ling a gun to the head of bus ddvers, counter workers her

l',ss. and informins then in a.ool, inditrerent voice that if thev

,li,ln t giv€ her her salary or her .offee right awav' she was going

r,, pull the trigger.

''1,um...thankyou'

Sbe found a frve-real banknote without having to take her

'!rllet out ofher Purse. Shehad turnedherback to both the fd'e

/'rl,,s and to Eduardo, and held h€r bag close to her body Habjts

. i.d picked uP in the New World. when she approached the

,,''nter. she saw that thetwo mulattoswere no longerpayingher

, Lrv attention but were deep in conversation, as if th^t 'apaeita

o{

,l, rth of iust a few minutes before had never actuallv happened

I l', was shaken by an awful {eeling of doubt Could it be that a1l

,,1 rhis the beer bottle, the crimson cloak-i 'as nothing but a

,, I on of her jnternally bleeding imagination? Mavbe these men

.'1,Iing on their Sundaybeers were not outto get her' Whyhadn't

r ti.urred to her that their btood chiling glances could just be

, , I of.uriosit, or sexual attraction? And to think that she had

' ,tidy written that very sane scene hersetf l}le protagonist of

66 Cir} in Crimson cl.at

the novet, still naned just O,' a half ictional "Ozgua" alnost

got into a s.rap with twojailbirds at some decrepit pla.e in Lapa

called "fte New World," her life barely saved bynere coincidence.

"]he violence within and the violence without... the boundaty

stones separating the two are being dislodged one by one. Life

and wyiting stand opposite one another, like two ventriloquists

speaking ftom their bellies. Each constandy trying to drown out

thevoice of the other.l m no longer certain which it is that I hear.

this rnust be whatmadness is like."

She took a long, lustful gutp ofgaarand. By the time she had

quenched her thirst, the bottle ia'as nearly empty. She got a high

from the sugar that rushed to her brain. She licked her lips at

length as she iipped open the cellophane-Mapped pack of ciga

"You do this?" she asked, indicating the charcoal drawing on

the display tab1e.

It was the face of a negro, long as if it its .heeks were being

squeezed together, its cheekbones resemblingthose ofa skeleton.

A ca ous, fragile, sorrowful narvative like a scabbed $'ound... [t.looked lile heAjust gotten out o{prison. Ozgiir saw the same fa.r

in that of the wide eyed, downtrodden woman she sometimes

watched from behind dirty bus windowsi but sh€ was incapabl'

of feeling even the same pain for that woman as she did for thir

portrait.

"Yes,gri,ga,I drew it. Or don't I looklike an artist?AI o{Sanli

Teresa knows that I'm an artist. And I m an alchitect. too.".Really?

You made all of these? this kiosk, this square, Sanrr

Having lit her 6rst cigarette, she was now jn a supremely go(rl

nood. she could nake allkinds ofnonsensical chitchat for houri

standing there under the hot sun. Eduardo attributed the grin,{4i

odd question to her limited Portuguese. H€ bowed his head, $t)lr

rrrdogrn 61

the sround, and mumbled something or other. Maybe the

womanjust had a screw loose.

Suddenly ozgiir felt tlat one of the countless puzzles of

l,r nemory had for no apparent reason been solved.'Ihat day,

wl,en she had eaten the olive paste and whit€ cheese sandwich

, i Beyazrt, SOMETHING had happened. Something that had

*,{rnded her deeply... A conveysation. In the courtyard where

l,, A smoked from awateryipe...''Do you speak English, Eduardo?"

'' Very litde. I love you, gnnga l"

Ozgur on.e again repliedwith the pu.keted face that she'dac

,tL,rrcd in Rio, as substitute for a smile.lt seemed that shea heard

rl',s sentence in various languag€s and tones since her early child-

L',d, and she was sick to death o{ it. Shea once been a beautiful

'',,rran, but she'd lost her beauty before she could learn how to

'' that rcally is very little.'Come over to my pla.e. I've got some high quality snowi we

,,, have alittle fun together."

'No thank you," replied Ozgrir, with the Old Worldpoliten€ss

I' ,r she had retained, in tulI, throughout the two years she d been

, llr.zil. SheA received numerous such invitations to go to bed;

",r ,,f the blue, informal, unceremonious. Only on the 6!st such

'",.$rrn had she been sho.ked byit; while standing around eating

'. z r, a friend o{ a friend, whose name she couldn't tecall, began

,,,,,;singherneckandtellingherrhathewas dyingtomakelove

,,, L, r. and she choked.

rilic arew silentwhen she sensed the.hange on Eduardo's face.

I ,. lrlt the eyes of a raptor upon her. Watching Eduardo's eyes

r "'w suddenly serious, she th€n saw that the madman of santa

r' ',,.,, was standingight next to them- He must have slipped up

'," ,ri.ed, from behind the kiosk, with the silent footsteps of a

C,ry in Crins.. Clorh

leopard. His blue, phosphorescent et€s werc 6xed upon ozgur'

She was totally immobilized; in the presence of a madman she

becam€ dumbsttu.k, as ifin the presence of a king, for she found

the insane even more frightening, more €lusive than the dead.

March marks the end of the long dry seasan in Rio |t's the month

when the trapical ruins begin, tuins that persist for davs' nights

weeks. A huge amy clad in black suddenly spreads owr the hotizan; it

approaches at a gallop, full speed, and attacks just like that, withaut

@arning. lt des.ends upan the eity like an abominable' inescapable

fate, without ewn allowing nne b pull down the shutters. A funaus

savage, venseful, insufferable, merciless dawnpout. The skv final|v

rebels. determined to ercdicate all af this fi|th-the streets, the sky'

scrapers, the blood, and the hbtory-and turn the city into a ttuer'

drcwning lt in the ocean. Ta return these lands to their rcal owners

the jungle... To return to ltrose beloved, pre'human davs, when time

did nat yet flow... me drops bun like acid; they stlip the calor t'1an

obje.ts, ond the oldest recolbctians fron mematv. Ihe floods ' drapinll

thensebes orer alt, sending everythinT awash The ocean, besier

ihg the city with its awful, uproalious laughtet; seagulls going nal

amangst the spume. .. Gigantic waves breaking upan the docks whisk

away, withoutpreiudice, allthat standsintheirpath Palm trees, gat

bage, beach rnbrellos, bnycles, drunkards, street peaple .

That night was het bifthday me 1,*e at the heatt of the cit'/ hal

floaded, and the water was iJaist high ewn an the nain at'enucs

Telephanes hadbeen down fot a week Late one night, she'd cone upon

a table af people ftam the street theater' she was so distruught thnt

she hadn't the sttength ta rcspond to even the most sinee/e of smil's

She'dbeenwaitingforhaursforthe lainto stap Her dpattnent wos n

stone s thrcw anay, but she had no desire to venture outside not wit h

thehugepe ets af rain.oming Aown Neat Aawn,whenthe musi'iatn

took a short break for an akohol boost," a goblin appeared at the btr

' hLran.e, a gigantic hirsute man with water running down his pants

tich were held up by a pie@ of twine. His heavy scent preceded him,

..tttling upon ercrythinE like a thi.k fog. He was leaning against a cal

i nn oh his left atm, stanaingtherc like the sphinx, patiently sctutini2'

t t t r1 everyone one by one. A merciless gaze impeniaus to illusian, ful|y

''tnizant of the true meaning af rhat thing.a eA the hunan soul"...

t h held an ovetuhelming s@ay of unknown origin o"e/ the graup, each

rnber af vhich was a puppet, the stnngs in his hands. Each tine

t ln il gaze net, she fek herself shivet like a sign whose nails were being

\,1t t tked out by a lialent wind. me madman had eyes the likes af whi.h

tt had never before seen in het life; cabalt blue, metalht, @ith an odd

'ltlt that almost seefted to emit a radiation with mass. Two stars

t nklin| on his fa@, abso*ing the darknesst tvo super navas on the

, ' ty. of explosian. A chemieal fire, bath buming austic and chilling,

, ttl.pedher conscience.

the gablin walked avet to her, as if she were the last person on

, , t t t h with wham he had not yet settled scores. He stoad tall before her,

t,b n proud plane trce. He was very, rery tall; he had a nose like the

t \ t rk of an eagle, and sttaight, ra1'en bla.k hair, like that of an Indian.

,\t t huge, bla.k nngs beneath his eyes... He was really vety ugly, but

| \ tt his ugliness therc was a kind of macnificence.

'scus olhos (Yorf srer," the man said, mumbling then a few

t:he vaguely heard the theatrical acrobat Andre say, feeling no

,

" I I t o low er hi s voice,'Don t watry, gt\nga, h e s hat'r.less. She was

Mcus olhos? (My eyes?) she stuttercd in het poorly accented

l. \t r angeir a? " ( F o r ei En er? ):t:r'gently nodded. The nan broke into impeccable Oxfa

' t "ni.],

your eyes arc like no others.

70 ciry itr Crimson Cloik

she shuddered, as if tryins to shake hercelf ftee of sone heavy

drug, an] indicated the SpanishJhdian nulatta Tanja wlo was sitting

''Het eyes arc more beautilll than mine.'

"I didn't use the wald beautiful. I said they arc inconpa/able."

Though she thought to ask hin just what he mednt by inconpa

rable, inside, she remained in a daze..me Hunan Dress, is forged bon. The Human Forn, a fiery Farge.

Ihe Hunan Face, a futnaee seal A.

At that momen\ she felt the bell jat arcund hel head nse. Ihis was

exattly what sheI been sea/chlhg for fot months: Soneohe who spakc

his awn lanEuoge. Like someane dying of thirct ih the middle of the

ocean, that's what she a been laoking for. For the first time, she met th.

natlman s glance with the sane intensity, and said the final line:.me Humdh Heart, its hungry Garge."

The Eablin's readionwdsriolent. He started into along, c.mplicaLen

tirade. He spoke brcathlessly; he was ruinins do@n words, sentences,

verses, like bullets fram a ha.hine gun. A quotatian ftom Macbeth,

a fanous line faan Keats... Ihase were the only ones she re.ognizcd.

She (auldn t keep up tuith his thoughts, ar keep tlack af his choin ol

assodarions. It was neithel possibb ta jain in an his delinun-andshe wasn't elen sure if that's what it was-nor to stop it.

Within a few minutes' time the bat owne\ Atnauda, .ame tunniryl

o'er with tt+,o waitets, toak hold of the man, who had just skipped liontliterdture to philosaphy and was talking about Locke, and grabbed hitn

and dragged hin out of the bat like a heaA of cattle. She was able to un

derstand anly a single sentenc of their prcfanity ridden aryunekt .

"l want to talk with her, not with yau, WITH HERIJust talk...'

The theater actols intetuened to help send the madman packirsl

without doing him too much danage. And thus did the gruesot't,.

mnd.\e, the sole gtft she had rcceired an het birthaay, disappear )wtlike that. She feb awful, a fist of guilt clehchlng inside af her; and !h/

\\LL Erdogxn 11

t .ok /efuge in a .igarette. Andre hatl thrown his arm dround he\ with

t ypi&l Brazilian indifferen.e-they cauldn t stdnd still withaut ha.)

Dg their hands all oret one anothet like lotebirds and begun strok

''You know that mah, light7

''Senhot deOliveiru.'

The only thine she recognized was the word 'biiveira" olirs

''He was one of Bra2il s leading painters in the 198A s. In fact, he s

t tu man who introdu.ed Bra2iliqn att to Europe. He lived in Eneland.

t t tt mah s got eulture, seriously."

She found hercelf stupefied on.e agaik, but not .edlly surprised.

,\ hating, ordihary, desolate evenlng had sudd.hly taken on profound

r r . nnings, signs, and hlysteties. Like the bus dtivets wha transfotneaI i t n t tgans, kings af the walld o/spilifs, i n .1. Candombld tllrals.

''So h,hy is he like thot? Crazy? Crczy like?

''lle gat that way dller he eme ba.k ta Bnzil He s not .razy, I, i i, d n, nat alL the tihe. He lives in the Blue Mansion next ta the kiask.

,\ t ully, he s a rery pledsaht fella when he's got his head an straight.

t tt s a,razing. But then, as youte seen, somctimes the nood strikesl rnd he td"t dnbo hr h;a.elt .h,o rhc .t,"cts

't)aes he stlll paint?

As fdr as I khow, he quit. As soon as he got back ta Brazil.

A h eated dis(ussion was now underway How drtists wercn t giren

t tt I i lue in thc Third WorA, the demise af the most impoftdht ,alues,

' t lttc street theater actors identifi.d thenselves with Oliveira and

ttt h yihg ta claim a pie.e of his genius-fof it was unanimausly

' | , t! that he was a genius. Meanwhile, Arnaudo had came up ta her

"tt vringtng his hanas, apalogized; he saia that the lunatie had neltet

t Iti| d anyane like that befarc, and so that s why he hadn't thought

t tik d(tion earlier. Arnauda, born and raised in SantaTeresa. did

12 ciry in crnnson Clork

nat know who Oliveira was. O felt like she was dto\9ning, and she

nade a mad dash out af the bar, despite the lain. She nn ta and fro'

the nindrops whipping against het face and li(kling in beneath her

callar: hopetessly she saught Oliveira, the goblin wha hdd disappeared

into the stomy darkness.

They ran into one another again two months l't'Y it was at her

Point Istanbul. Olivejra was wearing a black tuxedo; he looked

so elegant and smart that Ozglir was able to recognize him onlv

from his eagte nose. Next to him was a woman dioMing in jew

elry and make up. clearly, she belongedto that social class which

comprised the main buyers of the art world A haughtv muse a

bit gone ro.eed .. OLverr drd noi rP'pond ro O/8u's ppFis(enl

glances; he definitely did not remember hel lhat odd, bewitch

ing twinkle had disappeared ftom his eyes; tbe stars were extiD

guished, now nothing but dead celestialbodies

'heir paths had crossed several more times sin.e their initial

en.ounter. On o.casions when Oliveira was a street person, or

dudng those sp€tls when the nameless sheet person shed his

Oliveira shell. Every time h€ had suddenly appeared at Ozgnr's

side and stood thete, silently, motionless, enveloPing her in il

tragic, blue light that transfotmed h€r into a skeleton His evos

were lllc phosphorescent leaves giving off the onlvlight in a darl(

jungle. He never spoke to her again, except for the one time h(

said to her, "Sers o/fios." Every time, Ozgiir was ovd@m€ bv alr

uncontrolable sense of uneasiness and distanced herself fronr

him as quickly as she coLrld.

But today, she was determined not to tun away She wantt\l

to talk wjth Oliveira, to get a response out of him, no mati't

what the .ost. It was too much; she had to tell someone whil

.Don't worry, he's harmless " It was Eduardo who broke thr

..rlcnce. He wouldn't hurt a flea. He doesn't even talk. He just

.t.rnds there and looks."

ozgrir considered teJlinghim, "Buthe talked to ME," but then

.You remernber me, don't you?' she said, addressing him in

llnglish. "You know, that night, last March, you recited that fa

,'lrus quatlain by William Blake. And the last liDe, I..."

She felt like a cornplete idiot. I}le goblin didn t even hear her.

r,rst like Eduardo had said, he just stared, nothing more- Without..,,cDrg... His eyes were fi[ed with an adoration bordering uPon

w,)rship. "I must remind him of another woman. Maybe the

woman who drove him insane," she thoueht.

''He can't understand you," Eduardo int€riected. "He goes

w..ks without speaking, eating, drinking. I usually tale him to

',,y hut, clean him up a bit. You know, because he shits himself

.',id stuff. You wouldn't believe it, but he used to be a very famous

t,.,inter. In England..."

dzgiirdidnot even hear his words. Shewas completelycon.en-

r,rtcd upon one thing, and one thing only,like a huntet. Actually,

..|. didn't know what she was after. Ile word in the dark, the

,rlht reflecting offofthe silence? Or some other awtul miracle?

''It is a tale told by an idiot,'she said slowly, assuming full

,,.,,ponsibi1ity for the words that she spoke, full of sound and

r,Lry..." She wouidn't be able to say the last line without her ey€s

L' rmmingwith t€ars.

''Signifying.. . Signifying nothing.. ."

oliveira's eyes suddenly gleamed like a sun setting within

,'rrself and a wave of pain washed over his face, a sculpture in

' I really should take him to my hut. Otherwise he's bound to

r' r l)lown away by some strayblrllet."'spnha/ de Oliveira...' She was nearly begging him now. It was

Ciry in crinton cloaL

the courage of a poker plavet laying doM his {inat trump card A

petson could hardly be so far gone as to fotget his oM name

"senhot de Oltueira 'Ihere's something I want to ask you l

should ask. not whv vou no longer talk, but pethaps whv vou once

did."

"Senhot de Otil'eira. whv don t vou paint anvmore? Or why did

you once? Seeing as you would ultimatelv tale refuge in silence ?

What I'm really trying to understand is this: I 'an

breathe now

only when I s:r in lronr ol a bldnl' piFce of wnrre prPer- in d wrv

an empty, aleaf wall to which I bave nailed mvself-and 611 it witb

wotds. the words are enptv But stil thev fil mv vacuous life

In fact, they overtake it, reptace it You undetstand me' right? I

sense that You do '

Silence... EmPtiness. Oliveita was obviouslv' clearly' simplv

nor rherp. He hds not pFsenl nor even in hrs o$l cves Ozgut

suddenlY began to screan.

"Fot God's sake, what do vou see inmvevcs?"

lrom her lips had escaped the last question to which she wa!

pyeparedtohearthe answer. Shefroze' fiIedwith thepremonitiol

of a horrlble proplecy Such as 'A MORTEI ; the sentence o{ deal h

in a language other than her mother tongue But Oliveira wi!

merciful, at teast on the davs when he took refuge in the streer $

He returned to Ozsnr what she had given himl Emptiness ll"

didn't say a word. She calmlv submitted when Eduardo grabb*l

hey by the arm and began to drag her awav'

"By the way, I thought vou might want to know his namr r"

Eli." avoice said, in Portuguese

"WHAT? WIIAT DIDYOU SAY?"

"His name is Eli,' Eduardo lepeated' nodding toward$ llr

madman. lhe man was completelv devoid of will and spirit' Irl

gave no reaction whatsoever' He did not even react to hirs owrr

rame... His eyeswere still focused upon Ozgiir.

'' Eli, Eli, lama sab akhtani?"

"Sorry, what? What is that? Arabic?

''Something like that. It's tuamaic... 'fte last words that Jesus

.poke on the cross.'Father, father, why hast thou forsalen ne?'"lhats all nunbo jumbo to me, sweetheart. I carty my gods

i.re, inside. wel, see you latet, lover. Kisses " 'Ihe last word he

rlxrke in English.

Ozgur couldn t help but give him an agonized smile

'ijust be caretul they don't escape. It's a wretch€d age we

lrve in. the streets are much too dangercusl Kisses to you, too,

All of her courage, her strength, her desire to live had melted

. wrylike a candle. She was.overedin sweat tuom head to toe That

','sidious tremor settled onto the corner ofher mouth on.e again

'1,. felt the muddy gaze ofthe Portuguese man on het back She

r, rned around.lhe favelados were gone. She was orercone by an

,wl ul, ash-gray loneliness.

She lit a cigarette and began walking down the Santa Teresa

l,'ll She couldn't stand to go back home and be alone with her

. ,l,llcd inner world. With the echo o{ silence in her ears... She felt

r. L, ty She d tried to erploit Oliveira, prisoter to the luster of his

,r,r cocoon, and sousht in his sp€ctrum oflight, which reached

! rhc greatest extremes, avibration forheroMbenefit. She had

l.','ne much too dependent upon tle word, whose sacte&ess

,, lbcen de.lared in the OldTestament.'lr,,r cod's sake, what do you see in my eyes?"

[/hat audacityl How could she have fotgotten that in this city,

'll ,i, rnner of 'thoughts o{ the future" be.ame but a fear of death

r', ',

r h eir very in.eption? fte madman had taught her a momen

", . l.sson and sentenced her to life instead of death. She stood,

,,i,,i!l by arazor sharp enlightenment her cigarette had fallen

_,t-

16 airY in crirnson Clorl

{rorn her hand. the answer that she ran tuom-and chas€d af

ter-in horror was not d€ath. She had been afraid that Oliveira

would see tbe reflection othis own eyes Trat he wouldsense the

presence of $ose same magnificent stars, ofthe diamond tipped

arrow of insanity in her eyes... "I'm just hallucinating again ltemindhim o{anotherwoman, that's al Awoman ftom his past, a

woman he renoun.ed."

Sherccalled, as shebentover to pickup her cigarette, whv the

day she had eaten the olive paste and white ch€ese sandwich nr

front of the touristy kiosk in Beyazrt had not been an ordinarv

day. She was eighteenyears old, tuesh back fron her firstvacation

jn Bodrun, and she was meetingher lover' "I had this adventu/e'

so passionate, like the summer Yain, the young man had said to

her. "l thought Id fallen in love $,ith soneone else But then I

understood that, rea]ly, it'syou that I love "

A long forgotten first love, still smarting ten long years later'.

But it seemed that even in the midst ot that pain lay a kind of

happiness. Happinessathavingbeenloved, once,byevenasingl.

person in this whole wide world. .

It was almost sundowni she decided to go down to Lapa and

lose helself in the city crowds She walked towards her om Pri

vate Rio, erect and dgid as a ro.k, tulI of acrid, forlorn defeal'

and brimming over with her own private pain l'ler footsteps

were hard and determined, as if she were preparing for a terribl.

battlei but her sorrowful shoulders belied her courage to be thar

HARBORLESS VOYAGER

v,'yage6, nrept up and depasited upoh this forsaken cohnnent, so

I,| lrcn the fo.al point of civilization, by who knouts whi.h winds,

tn l.rtaws. cauntercurrents... OId Nazis, autlaws, intematianal ter

ntists, fallen dictata/s, sailorc, those r&oue truverceA the aeean in

' ttu n of the specter of freedam .. . Those who journey all the way to the

1 t ntrics, chasing a rccallection of lore that has ripened to petfe(tian in

ttt nind;those in sedrch af thenselres," oflast Atlantiseq those who

1\ litk nusic, dance, and passioh ta be the antldote ta a exinennal

1 r t in . .. Those who lear behind nat only their oats and boots, but theit

t o:;rien.es, ta.t, tc, pursue the dirt cheap lains af child/en.. . Incurable

t't4nties, their rcoms adorned with Che posters, who head stnight

t,t t he swdmps, belierjngthat there are no mare ideals worth dying for

,t their own .ountties... Those wha skip ftan one honzon to the next,

lnays longing fot the distant, farthe. fafthest .ontinents.. Those

in escape to Sauth America, theblankca asupan which to paint a

t tnt drcams: South America, that knotted bundle of illusions, prom

) .t:;, and fairytales. .. And those who collapse down on thet knees and

l', L t he floar in the chatuaus of their fantasy ...

Warld mig.ants... Devil-nay care iJanderers, night rcanels,

,, " jratuty birds. .. Those who walk alane on this great, infinite rcad

lttt! wha always trarel with ane'way ti.kets, those who disappear

"lthout d tra.e, those who spend decddes living aut of a suitcase.-

tttt.. who refuse ta be tied down, to be gtaunded, to integrate, wha

' rt t h.ir roats for the sake of a pair of wings inepable of calrying the

"" t)ltt of their bodies... Those with a fandness for deserted, russed

i

City 1n Crimson clolk

paths, ba& stteets, and the outet t'|inges of nenotv Those wha pte'

ferthe darkwinesto thebnght stage Those wha eddy back and forth

between t'no imaginary harbots, one hldden in the past the o&er in

the future... Hatborless loyagers

Letters vrhi& gruaually become less and 14s fruluent' and more

and marc repetitiw, thrce'penny post'a s' trite words of separation

fuII of node'to arder sniles photographs taken in poor lighting' gifts

light in terms of weight and wlue abituaies fulI of spelllng mistakes

squeezed into just thrce lines "Ot Consutate herebv announces the

death of T.M., .itizen of the Twkish Republic and haldet of paspott

numbet 01.1.7743, on4/24in ahanendous ttafftr aceident "

lhe evening she bought her notebook with the "Protect the

linvironmentl Extinction is Forever" cover, she hadbeen released

lrom the police station after eight hours ofto/ture. Shed dashed

,,,to a pizza place in Catete; there, she drank glass after glass of

l,.,paya juice, cup after cup of cotree, and smoked nearly an entire

t,,rck ofcigarettesj then she bought the thickest notebook she had

' vcr seen in her life from a stleet peddler. However, days would

t,.rss before she would 6naly he able to write the following on the

t ' ear to tell the truth, the r^Jhole truth, and nothingbut the duth.t trtt s the opening sentehce far those in the witness chair, or at least itr u Hollywood aurtrooms... But ah authar \rha starts off with these

-u!s should acept defeat by knock out flom the get'go. Even if he

t)lt atLempts to wite af phenamena phenomena that are plenty

, ')\'t to speak fot thensell'es-as saon as he begins to fiII in the na-| , ^ hefarc hin, he has to nake certain choices. What, whom, which

t.t' He will see that different sequences of the same phenanena

'tu hirth to entirery aiffercnt realities,like the innumeruble hands af

t ' 'L t trodueed by a pack af 26. And he cannot contenA ta be objectil,e

,) tl .l1oices that he makes. Plejudice, favoritism, a ase or twa of

' r|'t , t fuge, a little s.hening, inevitably become part and pareel of the

, r tnuor at hand; all of the fearc, expectatians, and feelings of worth

t t$s that he had re.oiled from aamittihg will suddenly one day

), t n light and nibbb away here and there at the powet of observa

AWAY

Heaven k a leaque beyond he ,

Hell a step past heaven.

110 City in Crin$n Clork

tian of which he is so baastful. Fot na elo is snall enough ta fa.e up to

its own reality. And if he has been able to make it thrcugh this phase

without losinghis belief-in which mse he should be congratulated for

his plu.k ani idealism indeed then, ance he amprehends that he has

to build,withhisownhands, a bndge betweenwo s and phenonena,

a btidge without a raihng, and ta aecomplish e'erything by himself,

lrom the choiee af natenals to the lightlng, the humilianan will teach

him a eood, hdrd lesson. But the nost horrif,c disappointment await

ihg him @hes at the end of .ountless days and nights spent bett)een

four walls, and which take place in an ocean of asht/ays and furthet

deepen yet anather clease on his forchead. And r,)hat eneryes aftet so

nuch effott, sacrifice, a4onizing, ahd etuatiandl turmoil is not at all

the btidge he was haping fot; it is not a bridge to the autside world. As

life ntinues flowing by, with all af its indifferen.e and irrerercnee,

he will find that he has managed to @nsttu.t nothing mote than tpersonal obserlation towet in the gruesane desert of rcality. A brittle,

moaning toweL full of the wind blowingin thrcugh its cracked wooden

planks. .. In the end, everyone who takes up a pen must struggle ||iththis question: Haw much rcality CAN I S?]AND?

She didn't know when shed decided to wiite rhe City in Crimso

Cloak; in fact, she didn t even think that such a "de.ision" had

been made. Like everything of determining .haracter in life, il

was the product of unexplainable accidents, encounters, and co,n, d"n. e". Borr . udd.nly Lkp pds\ion. ir h,d caught Ozglir un

awares.Iis headhungin sorrow,like that of an unwanted child.

In her first pain and fear-filled months in Rio, her imagin;r

tion writhed, like a mare that swells and swells but just cannor

give bilth. fte transfomation that she had labeled Process

D.struction" was proceeding at an astoundingly swift pa..

Everything decayed so quickly in the tlopics, and revived just i!swiftly. In a sjngle night a jungle of weeds, thorny bushes, anrl

\\lL Erd.grn 8l

tnison ilr would sproutup, replacing {elled trees. Chaos replaced

,,rder, pieces the whole, wild the domestic... Pe#ect proofofthe/-,,odlhamics in this universe, which is said to be governed by the

SheH plunged into passion with the mettle of a novice, and the

rrnpudence ofthe parvenu... SheA tasted the belatedly disovded,,,toxication of skin in magical and common embraces. Shedbeen

! du.edby Latin names, resonatinglike guitar stiings, always end

'rg in a cotton soft "o"-Fernando, Robelto, Rodrigo and each

r,me, she had fallen madly in love. fteyhad easily disposed ofher

', h rhqr empry p'omBe'. With a beauntul ,apng. " promisc. rlvrrm smile, a night of love that clotted her loneliness ratler thm, lrjrpating it... (And always the same explanation: Please don't

r rk. it personally. This is Rio de Janeiro.) "1 absolutely hav€ to see

ylu. tught away, tonight. I miss your scent so much.l'll cal you at

r,ve." Shed heard these same sentences in vdious sequences and

i n,m various lips countless different times. She had only believed it!i,re, the very first time she heardit. Shea waked out of the th€ater

l,,rlfway through the filn and rushedhome as ifby flying carpet in,iderto make itin time for that "enchanted" five o.lock. Forhours.

,l.rys, weeks, she sat bythe telephone, unable to ten herself away.

l.,ke a motherwhojust can't believe her child is stilbon...Because she couldn t deal with the long nights that extended

lr.fore her lile black tunnels, she clung to the human bodt salve

,)r the worst possible pains; she had do.ilely acquiesced to hav-

r11 her frail senality punted tuom one born samba dancer tollr next. Of course she had come to th€ realization that she was

','rhi.g but a bimbo prop in their love storiesi but she was so

,,r'rwhelned by loneliness that she was prepared to content

L.,selfwith the wobbly, tuagile breath oflove present even in t}Ie

,rx,st self seeking relationshjps. Herpower of imagination trans-

r,ri,,ed insubstantial memories into fairytales; and her memory

82

increasingly exaggerated the pleasule she had derived, and the

rcte she had played. At the pinnacle ofthe art ofself-delusion, she

would enbrace the telephone; as soon as she heard that saucy, ob

noxious, insolent Rio "ODy!" sound on the answering machin€,

shedhangup the receiver, in disgust.

this cityhad relinquishedher, andshe inturnhadtelinquishcd

her self. Otherwise, she never .ould have otrered up her body so

easily and, unfortunatelt in Rio's vocabulary of love, it was thr

body that had the last word.

'Ihe person she had spoken with on the telephone only an

hour ago and agreed to neet here had stood her up, naLing her

wait all alon€ for hours in the most dangerous part of Rio. thc

second salary check that herboss gave her, with a thousand and

one apologies, had bounced, after taking three different buses ar

the break of dawi for a lesson, her stud€nt tumed up missingr

as she was returninghome on an empty stomach, not yet having

had breakfast, a street kid put a knife to herthroat and denanded

the money that remain€d in h€r bag. Her friends tyied to templ

her lovers before her very own eyes, and what's more, expected

gratitude for having shown her the frne points of seduction. 'Ih.

streets of Rjo that she tlied so hard to keep away from her inn.r

world were muchmore than she couldtale. Gangrenous wounds,

eunshots, and sexuality... Every step she took, another hungry

child appeared at her side, leaving her to confront this questionl

Am I losing my humanity? Or is this whatbeinghuman means?

'Ihe principles that she had developed, distil€d through h.r

experienc€, had been expended, cruelly consumed, and nade a

tool to va/ious ends. I}le islets within the circle called "I" had es

caped her one by one and formed independent satellites aroun,l

her. The empty sheli left behjnd neanwhile had been abandon(l

to destruction, decat and the mercy o{ time, which doesn't ptry

\ \l' Ldolrn 33

At lirst she took refug€ in her an.ient friend, literatu/ej she

r{ght an authorwho.ould shed light upon the nisht that gradu

,lly deepened within her. An autbor whod ser foot upon wildLr s, whod had the blade of a knife pressed against her throatiy a twelve ycar old a n1ere child. Ozgif now had two separate

!v,,.lds. In the frrst world, woven of pjano sonatas and Chekhov

r.ries, that broad, d€ep o.ean called life was depicted on a thin,..rshell, while the se.ond belonged to deceplions of lov€, hit

'i,or, and the voracious jungle, determined to take everything

',lo its possession.lor a longtime, Ozgrir sought an authorwho

' I.hanged the rcalbut irrational world in which she lived for the1,, lional, but more real, one.

Finally, she understood that she was the oniy person capable

,,1 siving meaning Lo the void that surrounded her. Nobody else

,'L,kl decipher life's puzz)es for her, or open its padtocks. She

r.irted writing on the day that she decided where to deploy herr,,r..s agalnst the city's blind violence. Neirhe/ forherselfnor for,,rl,ers; she wote simply because she had to. As if excavating a

r,nrDd, shc peeled away the scab,layer by layer, to reveal the real-iry(,f Rjo, thedarkblood spewedbyan intenallybleedinspatient,l it)ping onto ea.h ofher sentences.

lly the end ofher fourth month in Rio, whjcb also marked her,,,.unter with her {ourth murder victim, she was already wellw.,re of her mortality; she had accepted that ir ra;ould take a

. ,,tle bullet to the head, in any street, ro wipe her ofl,rhis earth,,, ltood. SheA gotten in line for her own tiny rcle in a tragedy

i,Jl,)ing since timeimmemorial, andthe words had been given to

''You must go to distant lands to unde$tand people, a writerI' ,il drce said. Yet Ozgnr was able to understand the Latins onty

'lrtr she had left them far behind. "Nao vdia; a realidade estd

t, trttu de n.e.' (Dan't go awayi reality lies within you). perhaps

c,r! i. Crimson Clo!k

rl

34 Cit! ii Cnnroi Cl.r[

she would have to transcend hell before she could be reborn. The

perilous, hellish, melancholy tropics...

She'd now spurned that which had been presented to her as

"the woid," mobilizing all o{ her forces, she concentrated upon

a single goal to capture Rio liLe a butterfly in her hand, and to

gentlyimprison it in herlvords, witbout killing it. And so Tire City

in Cnnsan Cloak \aas horn.

A TRAVELERIN

THE STREETS OF RIO III

tl .ity ttembles feverishly in a raging fite. Like a huge beached whale, r st ruggles to breathe, buried beneath the .touds of stean rising fromttit hot asphalt. Not a single breeze has blawn in f,on the beach for,l,tls now; the heat rises as it.lrifts intand, hitting forty fiw in cent, t .ity. Street dags faam at the mouth; the stteet chilfuens lips arc, tkked fram debldration: the a.ean\ feeble waves tick at the .ity,sulnds. Only a downpaul of liEht washes the dusty avenues that

) t tk af hunans. The raw, sharp, painfully dazzting tropicat sunshine

t\1'trd.ts.alorc in a trcil ofhaze. Barelt bearable dliernaons... Timeltv1 gblindlyby... The haurs squirm, wail, wnthe. A badies are exl,l\ted,sticky,sated ta the very last ce . In a slumber that be.konstttt to death, she tties to gather sttength far the night. The day has1\ n abahtlaned to rct,like a piece af ftuit that s had its salory sec

A Turkish wonan wandenng aimtessly abaut the streets of Rio,t t , nS Laken refuge in ht awn setf, like a snait retrcats into jts shett;

I, t t rng the imminent pistol at her tenple; het mouth tike sandpaper:, r Li

" g trcmulaus steps large rings of sweat at her atmpits. .. Thete is

,1, r 1t rig she can tust ex.ept fol her a|'n eyes: the honzoh k limitei! tot ' t M2e. She sttuggles to draghel pate existen.e towards the future,'1 i t h has been rcpeabA here an these salage tands.

\hc is canstantly hunCty, but dbgusted by food. She is .onstanilyt )t nl. hut afraid of nightmares. She is constantty thirsty, but knows,

' I trhat for. She smokes one .igarctte after the other and cannot stop

1, t ltt): fron tremblins.

I

llr

I

l

L

I

/.n Crry in Crimso Ctoxt

She wants ta slip her arn into that of a ran{om passet-by ana bqfar a wad. Not for low, ar ronance, at faiendship; just ane word. matsingle wod that will give meaning to a saunas. me uJeary shadaw alhet back, entirely ihcapable of tuelty, brushes past the street peopte.

DOWNHILL

Thdt tue have fargottea is an illusion.

Deuida

rilic was making hel way down the peritous slope ofsanta Ter€sa

' , i d irrto the city. Ihe road, the sidewalks of which probabty hadn'ti,rr repaired for sone forty years, neandered like the Amazonllivcr, frcquently changing direction with its sharp bends fteL,,trrwaynils,havingabsorbedtheheatof rhesumnerdar shone

l,lr newly sharpened yellow knives and exuded a nauseating me,L,llic scent. Ozgrir was walking along the railway, which had been,, rr of use sin.e the Japanes€ businessman was kilted. With rheir,!,)rn out heels, her shoes wouldn't have been able to handle the,i,,Bh stones of Santa Teresa. She took short, swift steps, tike a

l,phese woman in a kimono, &om one railway tie to the nextjr.rw and then sheA jump, as if playing a game of hopscotch.lr'rhaps the last nicker of childhood that Rio hadn t yet manasedr,' strip her of... She definitelynever ever stepped on metal; it was

,,,,o of numerous personal nini rites sheA developed ro prote.tlr''self from bad luck. Untiljusr a year ago, shea turned her nose,l,.rt Lhe Brazilians vacuous beliefs, the .ountless religions upon

'rILch theyd wreaked bavoc, al1 kinds o{ nystic beliefs to whichrl,,,y half wittingly devoted themselves astrologn fortunes,,,',,s, hlnns, spells. In rhis cit, so chaotic that a single god alone

,L,ld neverendure, vadous religions, denominations, and myths, ' , rgled and neshed. fte Catholic Church, condernning with one, ,,d while sanctifying with th€ otherj Protestantism, a faded

r'.,r(h in the revelry of rhe tropi.si the Baptist Church, wjth its,, r,rnonies ofnoise, commotjon, and sanba spilling over into the

l

Cir] in CriDson Cl.xk

streets: the Cardonlb, now nothing bur black magi'; native to-

tems turnedinto flea marketgods; Zen tsuddhism, the favorite of

the ecologicaly concerned new generation middle class' so open

as it is to aI kinds of quests for balance; Mormons who climb

up to the favelas in dress suits, despite the infernal heati Hare

Krishnas with thet carnival masks Inthis life- squanderjng city'

survival proved impossibte for the godless

'Ihe steep incline made construction imposslble, and so the

slope on the right side ofthe hill was a completelv unsettled jun

g]e. Only a Francis.an monestarv, datingfrom the endofthe last

century, stooal concealed behind high wals Nobodywas allowed

to go in, and the nuns we/e not allowed to leave ozgnrt 'uiouseyes were only abte to pick out a silhouette or t o, swaving likc

penguins behind the iron doot. On the left side were rows of de

crepit houses, tatge and smal. Villas,left behindbv the pre 'oup

Iich who had made their escapewhen the fd'elas took over Santi

Teresa, had rotted and disintegratedin this atlocious climate well

be{ore their time. Weeds, i!7, thorny bushes, {allen tree tninks

had overtaken the derelictyards, andthe iungle, reborn each da)'

enveloped everything. It looked war torn; evervthing strewn'

.laotic. wounded... Visibte here and there amongst the savai}

greenness gushing fotth from evervpote, swiftlv devourjng everv

in.h into which it could sink its claws, was the craterous Sanli

Teresavalley.

'fte fdrelinia was like a thousand-armed, 'halkv

white octop'rr

trying to .limb its way uP a giSantic, deep gteen 'ro'k Resistilrt

gravity on those huge rock outcrops' on the soaring cljtrs of Ri"

where even srass feared to tread, thefa'elds gtew, dav bv day' lilr

aboil.Amonumentto desperation unclearwhetheritwas growllr

or decayian organism with nine ljves, a giant a"umulation of rrr

nexes, comPised of so nr:ch hopelessness, so nanv lost batlln

so nuchpersonai agony.. Nearlv all of the featureless' indistir! I

\\li Erdolan 89

,,iatchbox houses, which looked more tike dressing cabins on thel!,ach than places of residence, had been constructed directiy.rlj.rcent to one another. fteyhad noroofs, and their interlinkingrrraces provided for a labyrinthine structure that made poti.e

, r ids nert to impossible. Except for midday, when they were sub

r,\ tcd to the sunt rage, the terrac€s would teem wirh peopte tike

Men, ca4acking famiiy breadwinners by trade, woutd prepare

r rk chops and lug cases of beer for a cookout. Fult bodied muI'rro women would hang laundry; adolescents, having panaLen,,i .tll manner of sexuality and vioten.e before the age of 6{teen,

{rld revamp thet speakers for the nightfesra. chetto chitdren,rl', dnlyspecies on earth absoluteiy imperyious tothesub, woltd.'r rrn aboutlike so manybees es.apedfrom thehjve.Animage of

tr.,reful, sedate, domesric Sunday, enough to easily foot anyone, , r w.ll acquainted with Rio.. . Yet the shots continued to ring out

, " r|c hour, revealing all of this-the chops, rhe hammo&s, theI'

' ,l .lothes dryiDg on the line-to be ephemerat, in the batance,

I lt was but a mask, vital and breathing; and hiding the seeds

,,' renory ofdeath.

,1 YOYA6'R IN THE IAND OF THE DEAD

tt, t.tvelados don t call the plaee wherc they Itue the faveta, just like,), N t r t iws don't eall themsebes Natiles. mey refer to themsetves by, ',,1 lire.t, sttdightforwa te/n mol.1o (hiII).In partuguese,

"' I ako neans "I'm dyinq,' So is it just a slip of the tonsue, or yet

',rttt a xanple of the .ity s devilish sense of hunot?t 1 k n lu.taht guiae an this journey into the Land of the Dead was

t t r L h.auty a sti.t Catholic, membet of the conmunist party,

' ' ' : t t y student, hailing llom the Vigario Ceftt (a {avela fanous

t ' tt, lturtendous massacle that took pla@ there in 199q. Maia

C,r) in Cr'mv,n Clo l

Theresa ferried the a.ross the Ukdery/oun'l Ri'er-tfie gringa

buning with unasity, and four Ceriacas who agreed to go on thi!

joumey just because they could nat bring thenselres tt) let tie gdngi

go alone, othe^L,ise they @ould newr in this hfetime eter have set foot

The Land of the Dead's insidiaus, squatid, mvste/ious labvrinths

An hour long .limb that teaws you bredthless as vou leap fron terrdl

to terrace an{ rcek to rock, passing through the narrowest af corrida^

dnd tunnels. .. Homes, their plaster peeling laoking like faces riddlel

with pimples ahA boils; huts dtooping to ane side as if meked by tht

\m: brush and reed shanties fian wha knows \a'hat periad af ci"iliza

non... Everythinefun.tianal, jan pa.ked,huddled, and as uglv as can

be. Like theatet da.or on the vetge of collapse; she snelled nud arul

se@age, and the stench of ratting she per'eircd an unnanable ben4l

in the thrces of death there 1n the shada:',f Itwas pethaps, the tra1l

edies that had been passed dawn ftam generation to genention Da' k

pav,ers, nightmarc'.rippling feare, bload'sucking battles, dangetuus

A senty every fifty neters Cammanda vermelho s rankLls

soldiets, Hades' pubestent guards . me sharp eves of a huse bnd tl

prey always at their ba.k lhey @ear fat gold 'hains and watthLs

an thelr feet are sneakerc the size af babies tanbs; thet Bob Ma/I"'

t shirts ean eal their pistals, the keys that open up all the doors thtt

the wa d has slan|.ned in thet faces. Thev dress like rap stars thtv

sttut like Hollywoad gangsterc, anil thev die like fiies lNithaut evrr

realizing that they themselves ate the rcal gangsters the real pc{ll'

They had been iwited to the Fifteenth'bifthdav pat\r of tl'

daughter of a nodest, pious @a*he Aass fanilv The voung gitl tl

rcady laoking like a nother af twa' was swathed in her snow whitt

heart-rending .ommunian .lathes A la'v dress with a billoliv sh t

and puff sleeves, poinq, high soted linen shoes, a ctaun of fake i\rn'

t \. e t ... Wome n drc ss ed in an amdtgan af bi'ht calors, as if thev'd

tr\.n doused in buckets of paint, werc gathered around a take deco

t rt ed with kitschy swans and tacky roses' posing for the phatographer'

Nha'A been hned fot this night' a night spdted na sacrifice Sane

t,lpped their most naive, most imbe(ilic smiles on thei fa@, while

',thets slipped out of the mask of happiness thev've been farced to

,tat throushaut their liws, and there in front of the camera arrived

n thei/ solemn, heavy heatted, eahausted selves, thel real sebes An

,iDnzingly familiat world, tike thase town weddings in old Tutkish

t t r\ties... A guitar instead of the drum and horn, the sanba instead of

t tn +lftetellt. .. Some two hmdted guests sardined on the latge living'

t n,n-sized terrace scranbled for the rcfreshment anA pasttv trcvs as

\l their ttues depended on it A ptivilege '

howewr, was bestowed upon

tht gtinga, who was hande.l a stoot an| a can of soaa She fek like

t t:iant parrot that haAn't yet leaned how to speak: perched on her

tul, she toak micros@pic sips floft her sada, whi&

t I he water at a Turkish bath and ttied to withstand the heat and

11 , sweaty bodies that pressed up against het. At one paint, kno@ing

ttit and soad that she wauld lose her goldnine of a spot in the carnet'

Jn asked for bave lron two gangstets at the head of the staits and

,trv. lkdaors, only to find that it was even more dawded inside than it

t,xl been out on the terrace Wonen of all ages dustered in groups of

t ' or fifteen in the mostly windawless toons the size af monks' 'ells

uing at black arut white scrcens undet the ruw light of naked bulbs '

lhtrc was na running vrater; the etectrxity was stolen: ardboard and

ltn.leum werc plastercA all owr the windaws and therc "/as

a teleri'

rt1 in elery roam Neither the boundalies of the hause wete cleat'

n its .loats. or t ha .ame and ent ln the favels reigned a lifestvle

tttut rendercd con.epts like "properry" and "Ptirate life" and taboos

t,k. nrcst invalid but more than a commune it resembled a women's

t't tsoh ward. when the famished guest of honar toak a pastrv ftom

.t of the ,ays in the kitchen, she met with harsh glanees, shatp rc'

Ci$ itr Cnrh$n C o.'r. ".1I

p/aaches, hlatant .urses. The insolent bourgeox, .laining eftry objet t

an earth, touthing and grasping and fingeting elerything they @n ger

Befo.e the haw af midnight, the small group was toLl ta teave thl{avela immediately. Of course there was na explanation, but the watut

on the town rlas that a bloodbath was underway in Boca de rumi(Smoke Mouth), where the ecaine dealing went an.

Final image frcm the Land of the Dead: me group, abdhdaned by

their guide miaway, is horrified, and desperately seeks a way out; th.ythrow themselres downhill dnd run with a their night They dive into

dead end streets, .limb wdlls, jump fron loof to rcof. Same tnp antt

fa on the rough streets, some bawl thet eyes out, some lenenb.tthet manhood and urse theit .owardi.e... Ea(h ane is con.ened wit h

soving himself alane; nobody helps anyone eke; nobody encoura!:rt

anyane eke, nobody tutns araund ta laok after the othe.s. A sabo.lsemi automatics tings aut ftan uphiLl. Ab/eathless Lutydice, drench

as if shed been washed dawn with a hose, is so tdken aba& that shl

fotgets tu be afraid; with all her night she ties to.atch up; she faltsaawn twi.e and, desensinzed ta the pain in hel stuo en ankte, sk+,t

flom stone to stone like a broken wlnged sparraw. She is on the wrg,.

Dawn, downhill, dawn as if she would never stap... Doh't stop, n.teren fal a second, doht lase the het.l, gather all yan strength! Don l

fall again and, whatever you da, da hot laok bd.kl

ln her novel she had re.orded, true to actual events, an accour)r

of the jouney that she had made ba.k in the spring of nlnelyfoua to the huge farela o{ Vigario ceral, where masked poltrmen massacred two homes full ofpeople; thar is, rrue exc€pt t,,r

one small detajl. Actualy, she hadn t heard any gunshots th.rr

nightj shed received news of the frght in Bo.a de Fr,1a only lat,,lUnfortunatelt all those hordflng nightmares do evenrua y

,,,ne t/uel 'I|e headline on the violence page last Sunday: "10

.rd in Vigario Geral. Cocaine war.rashes birthdayparty.'

Another one of those curves in whi.h her novel, instead o{

, hising breathlessly after the truth as it uslally doe, suddenly

t)riDts ahead to take thelead. To her it was perfectlynatural that

.Lir,r transferring them to paper, she should recall her memories

,st ,s she had written them, or that language should teplace

.' sli.e of reality that had atteady taken place. Human memort

, I alone a writer'.s memort possesses not a shrcd of that virtle,.r ledhonesty. Butwhatwas realy frightening was theprescience

, n h er imaginings. And how they claimed some sort of ight over

r L r luture. . Tre real Rio de Janeiro and nle City in Cdmson Cloak

I .,d melded together, both in time and spacei they had become a

' ,rificd, insoluble, unparsable whole, as much in the tuture as in

lif past. And the labyrinth, with all of its wells and pendulums

' !l secret rooms, through which she fumbled and groped her

N.,y, was as much intemal as jt was extenal.

At one poini she hadendeavored to write a book thatwas one

l,,,ndr€d percent autobiographi.al. Or as she once referred to it,,,r a particulally sar.asti. day, a record of traumatic events."

ll,rbaps jt was he! attempt to knock a tragic h€ro, a proud monu-

,,.,,t of humankind, off its pedestal... Her goal: to polish up

r iose memories, frozen in the placenta ofher jmagination, with

, (oat o{ poeticism. Yet what had emerged was a completely dif, r.rlt story altogether; a story that, even if it had happened to

l', ., was not something that she had "expeienced for rea1, but

, llory that belonged to another woman, to O. ftat intractable

,urman whose progress she so carefully monitored,like a mother

I l.niDg to her baby kick in her womb, was growing increasingly

,!lcpendent with everypassing day, andkept trying to take over

i..uthofs own role; she was uswping.enter stage. It was as i{i ),aur's bland soul had been held up to a pism, and in the {otm

I

ofO., finally hdiated with all the.oloF o{the spectrum, even in

the purest, most pistine bla.k and white. As jf she w€re nore

concrete, more real, mole human than Ozgur. More alive, even

after beingmurderedby a single bulletneal the Blue Hill/atela at

the end of the novel. Finallx in the end, on.e sheu gro n strong

enough, she would break free, pushing Ozgnr onto the margins

and overtaking her completely. She would set out for the savage

landsof herowncountry-dragginghermakerbehindher,like.

She walked silentlyup the hill for some time, breaking out in itar ljke swear beneath the sharp lighrs, which bit at the back of hcr

ne.k. She d swi{tly used up the 1ittle bit of energy th at Lhe guarunn

had provided. Herhead began to spin and she became nauseated

before shed even made it halfway up the hil. the asphalt was

meltingbeneath her feet. Two years ago, in copacabana, she had

tried to swim in the o.ean {or the vety first-andveryl:st-timcImmersed in freezing water up to her waist, she waited for thal

first wave to hit her. Fol that huge ocean wave, rnaybe a mettr

high, which quickly rose before her like a wall of steel, wreakinll

havoc as it drew closer... She'd stood firm as a ro.k, and did nor

collapse. Not for a long time, not until the wave began to /e.ed.,

takins the floor below hq feet with it. She was hit by anothc'

wave, a ferocious kick to the face, and then anothet, before sheii

had the chance to recompose herself... And that s exactly how slx'

felt dght nowi the world was receding below her feet. And shr

knew why: HUNGER. She hadn't had anything to eat for the lilrr

She quicklyscouted out het surroundings before slippingnrlt'

the garden of the long disused vila belonging to the Society f,,r

the Protection of Street Children. She took a few st€ps into ll!'thick brush and then withdrew to a secluded area invisible frorrr

the road. She took out her pocket mirror, her 6ve rdal banknolr,

a'ir! ii ( r 'nson

CLorl

rnd the.ocaine in her stash. She wiped her damp palns on her

t)ants;with skillfulfingers she made two 6ne lines ofpowder on

rhe milrorishe leanedtowards her own reflection,like an elephant

l{'aningin to ddnk water from a lake, a pape! trunk hanging fronl,er nose. It sent a dose o{ pure, undiluted, faise energy into her

i)ody, which was depleted of strength or desire to walk any fur-

r her. nre cocaine seared her nasal passages as if she d just inhaled

nitdc acid; she squeezed her nose with all of her might to make

.;ure that no! one bit of her {eatherweight fri€ndwent to waste.

She didn't have enough money to be a coke addict, and be-

jrdes, she didnl really enjoy it anyway.In Rio, shed ofa[ oftleirrsso.iated nyths, drugs had becone an object of .onsumption

,tlually accessible to one and all. they were easier to get than

l)read even. Evelyone in Cariocadid then; {ron servants to busi

,r.ssmen, ftom university professors to police chiefs. Drugs kept

rhc td'elas afloat, invigorated the city's economy, and paid folrhc unfathomable costs of the camival. For a long time she had

rvoided cocaine like the plague. She was pron€ to all kinds ofad

,li.tions, especially when alone andidle. Overtime her wilipower

wo,kened, and her indifference towards herselfincreased to such

, degree that nothing flightened her anymore. She experienced

rlrc miE.ulous transformation shed been hoping for only once,

,,,1y the first time shed tded it. Suddenl, she had become as

lltht as a feathei shed shed her chronic unhappiness, and the

lrrvy ahor of her dour personaJity. At the hour of midnight

l,.A thrown herself into the task of housecleaning, which shed

Itr en putting off for months, and was finished in half an hour.

'rr,ll feeling the rush, shed then pro.eeded to look through all

, '1 I h e old newspapers, lettets, and scraps of paper lying about,

r,' organize her bookshell to kill the leeches in her barhtub, and

t'f,i1ly to dress hersel{ up to the nines before dashing out of her

't',rrtment- Until the wee houls of norning shed hopped ftom

I

l.

C,ry in Crin$n Ctri I

bar to bar, belting out songs and dancing to theworid's most chatlengi.g rhythms, from the san:ba to the ar!, and getting tuiskywith a blue-eyed mulatto while wairing in the never,waning lln.for th€ bathroom at Sobrenatural.

Now she used rhat winged elix; {rom the Andes sotety folthe purpose of.oping with the grueling effects of hunger. forsome time she hadn't been on very good terms with drugs oralcohol anlvay. And she was not concerned wjth es.aping frohthe real world-if such a thing does jnde€d exist. To the contraiy, she hopelesslytried to draw.tosel to it. Before her stood rMatryosbl<a, countless dotls nesred one inside the otherj but rryas she might, sh€ just could not reach thar wortd at the bottonr.the essence, the corc ofrealiry.

the battle at the top of Santa Teresa had staltedup once agailTI€ gangsters must have woken frcm their siestas and gort{,,back to wolk, mumbling and cursjng and grogsy. A round of buliets, silence, another round. Bullets that rurn the serene face otthe afternoob into one seared with po.kmarks... ,.Ljke

me, thes.fellas plobably just have no patience for the familial armosphefuof Sundays," thought Ozgiir, smiljng beneath a slnthetic hato (nhappiness- "lhere you have it, the real wortdt In aI its magnitrcen.e, unfolding like a fan before rny very eyes._. Semi,automarics, senseless conversation, lunatics... A torchiight procession otjestersl" AI of a sudden she doubled over, as if shed just bed,given a swift kick to the stomach. Trat awful nausea. the m.rrrena.rou. gifr rhis gcnerou< ( irv hcd grver her..

Shed managed to make it rhrough another Rio carnjvitwithout being violared, trampled, mugged, stabbed, or rapc,tFor ten days and nights, overcome with a case of stark ravinumadness, the locals, together with a few rhousand tourisrxnabbergasted by the downpour of tits and ass, had staged tthworlds nost grandiose orgl Ozgrir, too, had gotten cau,thr

Lr| in the overpowering curreDt of events. In the folty degree

li.at, ,lo.os (throngs of nasked and unmasked people raisingll l], making tove, drinking, dancing, and trailjnS after musicjans

l! r.bed on the backs oftru.ks) had besieged the.ity like thronss,,1 nalauders, and she had run fron one )loro to the next. She

,iride room for one body amongst rhe thousands of wet bodies

lrruncing upon her; she d taken her life into her own handsjust towriggle to the samba and twistedherankle while bouncing,boutri, lhe /reroj she hadn't protested at the pinches to her ass, andl,rd only sought help from the police two or rhree times when

rhings really got out ofhand. She, roo, snatched a few of the one

,,,illion .ondoms being passed out in fro.t ofthe Sambridromo.rNvenirs of Rjo and warched s.enes that surpassed anythingl,er well b€haved imagination coutd ever have conjured up, as jfl,.eping on a bun.h of mating cats... SheA been pulled inro rhat,li,zying, magneti. 6e1d of sexualityj for ten days and ten nights!hcd been hurled from one extreme to the next in a stare ofsemi-,Dsanity. She was breathless, drenched, and stunned, like a babyl,iid thafs fallen into a swamp...lhe ftozen corpse smile that she

srtrck on her fa.e in ljeu of a calbival maskj a can of.ola and a

packet ofcigarettes always in hand; her keys attached to her un,,lcrwear with safety pins; lacking idendty, willpower, ego... Andwhen, frnally, she could nolongerstand theloneljness ofcarnival,r loneliness like no other, she lhrew herself into the nearest lap.

lndiscrininately... throughout all those days and nights she had

!pentscaredto death of being attacked, catching a disease, or los-ing her mind, she had failed to .onvince herseli even once, that

'he was happy; or more precisely, that this was happiness. With,{re exception, just a single brief momenr... ftat indescdbable,

n.rpressible, unrepeatable moment, there in that pile of recol,icctions that memory should have immediately ielegated to the

Ciry in CnniJn Clorl

descent; the one ttut destrcys itself along with evetythins etse.

In the secludedgarden that she referredto as her "tropicat nook,

she leaned her head agalnst her knees and fought the nause:,

bjting her hands until they nearly bled. tt was as if bullets werc

ripping through her head. the cocaine hadn't done her taur

nerves so taut they were about to snap-any good. "t need .little peace of mind, some peace of nind, and to forget. Ite so! nd

ofgunshots separates me even from my very selfnow; those anrt

that cursednovel. She was in thejungle, thar comer ofthewort(tfarthest from any kind of peace of mind. Hundreds of insects, fl ies,

and ants had descended upon herj they seemed to be waiting forthe damp, odd smelling, motionless mass o{meat to disintegrat,,

any moment now She was surrounded by plants intertwined,

shoulder to shoulder, crammed tosether. Racinstowards the sur,

always higher and higher, wirh a rabid thirst for light; in a star.of constant bi.kering, always at each otherk throats, seeming t,r

explode from within as they gave vent to their {rustrarjon... Eactr

leaf was the incamation of another battle, like every bullet anrt

everyword... the sign of another death, yet another mask...

Some slightly wilted orchids caught hey eye. Six orchids w.r.lined up in a crescent moon shape around a half-smoked cigrrMACUMBA! Black magic! those forests of Rio still permeabt,,

by hunans were fu of votives offered ro the Candombli gods: n

half drunk bottle of cariaca or a half,smoked cigar surroundrtbysix or twelve flowers. Sometimes apan half,ilted with meat or

6sh- Shedidn'tknow the meaningbehind the incomplete state (n

th€ votive offeringsj perhaps the idea was to show that rhe wort,l

beionged to both the gods and the mortals, as if sliced perf&rlyin half. She renenbered that Commando Velmetho came dowrr

ftom the /arelas ar night to bury the dead in abandoned yards irrtthe thought suddenly made her feel uneasy, though neither rl!,

lI

l i,rpses nor the blackmagic could do her any harm. Like the savrse tribes, she took no offense at sharing the tand with the dead:,n fact, she felt herself to be just as privy to the secrets of thelkad as the magi.ians themsetves were. Nevertheless, she ieaptri) her feet. More out of anxiety that she mighr get scared thant,ut of fear itself, she quicklygathered her bag and began runningrrraight towards the wa1l. She stood directiy in flont of it beforeI ,tking an ostentatious leap and breakjng out in uproarjous lauehr.r at her sroundless fears. A joy 6t.hed froh childioodt When/,e was ejght or nin€ years old-tw€nty long years agol sheandr.rneighborhood friends used to hold.,pjrate expeditions,to the

,, d wooden vilas in Coztepe; theyd return from the ruined build_r:,gs,long fallen subject to the sultanate ofrats, with theirbooty.{ )n.e, they got caught by a watchman. Screaming, hands and. , nrs covered in s.ratches and bruises, batf drunk on the thri'l nnaly getting to be reat pirares, they broke the windows on,lI second Roo/ and junped down into the gardens below. only

' ic person got caught that day. Tiny Ozgrir, with btood tri.kting,1,)wn her knees and onto her ankles, was collared while scraml)ling to climb over the galden wal. She got a royai thrashing, burlI didn't feel any pain. Not only did her punishrnent intensifylrr tleasure of having committed a crime, but it elevated her to

She stopped at the rop ofthe stairs teading down to LapaandI,,,'kcd at the Santa Teresa Valley one last time, tike Robinson

' ,,,,ec biddinC farewell ro his island. She took a mental photo,' t)h ofthe tropi.s, one that she .ould take with her and entarge

' y (itue she wished. Trees whose trunks had become invisibte,,,,,,( caled by.lusters ofleavesi petulant grasses, tush and dense

' r, I lull of sap; iry crawling over evelything it could sink its ctaws, ' , i; flump, pint-si2ed banana trees; imposing mango trees, their!A stroking the skyj bulky jackftuit, the plane tree of the tlop

I

102 Cir) in crimson Clorl

icsi garrulous palms, their lips in constant mumbling motion. .

'i}!e rare foreisn tree that thinks it's in the Alps, its lanky skel

etonvisibte behind diseasedleaves .. Like a balierina holding het

breath, struggling to keep her balance duing an extraordinadlv

difficult pose. Every tone of green: emerald, pine, pistachio, sea

apple,jade, chrysolite-.. the landscape before herwas completely

ditrerent ftom the insular, reserved, downcast nature o{ thc

northem climates. Here, nature was so enberant, so vigorous

and beckoning, so vibyant, that it seemed to be visibly breath

ing. It wasn't posing fot some manmade Pottrait lt had not yet

been depleted or made into a sacled ptayground of the goddess

It had never been part of any estabiished system lt was indePen

dent and stlong'willed; in a state of constant revolt, retusing trr

compromise, pressing fotratd like a fotest 6re ceYtain to go oor

should it deplete its essence.

"Ifonly I could take in all ofthese imPressions before turniD,l

them into symbols. If only I could keep from imputjng my own

emotions to natute, which actually has none" At that moment

she was startled by the eerie sound of someone whistling, as il

a huge tropical bird had just spread its wings dght behind hcr

R€luctantly, she turned around. I}lere wasn't a soul to be secrr

on the hill, which dissolved into a liquid blur before her eyes Shr

stood beneath a jackfruit tree; such a sound couldn't possiblv

have come from the steel-skinned, rugby'ball sized fruits at h.r

feet. Shed tasted iackfruit once. Athertongue's 6tst contact, shl

thought it tasted like damsoni but then when she ripped into il

with her teeth, it released a bitter, pungent, urine scented jui.r

this fiuit was the perfect candidate to be a symbol for so narv

things; love, life, reality...

"Het hey. overherel"

Her heart leapt into her mouth Until then, she hadn't n"

ticed the five ot six-year old b1a.k gnl sitting on the wall on lhr

\\ hrdogrtr t0:l

,rth€r sjde ofthe scrub. She was very cute, tiny and as black as a

scncgalese. Her hair was woven, the feist, fidgety curls tamed

r r t o hundreds of skinny African braids. She was wearing make up;

rl)e b.i.k coloyed lipsti.k that she had so generously applied or.LDdaround her lips nade hermouth look like an open wound.

"Look! Look herel i'ma goalie.

She merrilywaved herhands clad in blackleathetgloves nearlylnlfas big as she was. For a few momenis, Ozgnrwas speechless.

"Irose aren't goalie gloves. Ihey're boxing gloves," she said

rLnally.

I}le little girl scowled and stuck out her lower 1ip. She wasn't,nie to giv. up easily.

'"Ihese are Pele's stoves."''That's ight. But isn t pele a boxer?"'Ihe girl gave Ozgiir a curious look, scanning her from head to

r,)c. Tlere was somethingweird abour this woman, aboutthewayl,c talked, the way she looked... Some differen.e that she just

, irldn't quite put her finger on..."You'te really white, she said after a while, obviously exhila-

,,rtcd athaving found an explanatlon.

For a fleetingrnoment Ozgrir .onsidered tea.hing the girl thew.rd 'gringa," but quickly .hanged her mind. Instead, she just

.Do you like black?" the sirl asked.

"What's 'black'?"

Of.ourse sbe knew very well that the word p/sro heant both,1.,.k as in the color black, and negro. Ever since shed started

,riking a living otr of prjvate lessons, sheA acted upon this ir-,t)ressible urge to ask wretchedly sinple questions, behavior

,!lii.h inevitably made her conversants skepti.al about her menr.'l health. It wasn't that she was being bratty, but that she was

,'lisessed with analyring concepts down ro their most basic mean

Cirt in Crinson Clotl

ings. But 1o and behold the girl wasn't dumbstruck bv this ques

tio"n as herstudents would have been;she countered instantlv'

"Blacks mY colot"

ozgur nodded her head in agreement

"ve",I llle Ut"d. e'avo", do vou like mv colot? White?"

the girl pleferred silence to a lie For several minutes sh'

"t.."a "i 1", gfo*", ""

if wishing to crawl inside them and Iall

asleep. 'Ihen all o{ a sr:dden she junped otr the wall and disap

peared into the brush.

"Hey, little onel You forgot vour glovesl Hev whete'd vou go?

I ve got your gloves herel'

Tuning a deaf earto the instinctual voice rhat toldher to iunr

,-""a ""i -"1t.*"n Ozgiir walked up to the wall Just as shc'(l

thought, the gitl had vanjshed, as ifthe earth hadjust swallow'(l

t'". "p.

rr,i" "* ,""tlv

"erv strange' very strange indeedl Mavb|

a b"iom". She thre* the gloves to the ground like a couple ol

dead rats. She'dbegun to feel dizzv and sick to her stoma'h agairr'

and her liPs were ttembling

"God, please just let me make it through this day in onr

She dowlv besan to make her descent d'wn the stairs sh'

.oulo ha dly leep her balar' p a' iFhe w'r' rrving'o'er' r'

standing on a raft being whisked awav bv a spontaneous cur'nr

only a few minutes hadp:ssedbefore shepaused closedher evrt

and repeated her eia'ulatorv Praver three tirtes nren' beln'

she even had a chance to step aside' she found herself squatr ir"1

doi,vn right there in the middte o{ the stairs' where she vomir(l

up everfthing, everv last droP ancl morsel rhat had enteted l' t

stoma.h that daY

A TNAVELER IN THE STREETS OF RIO_ THE STREET PEOPLI OF RIO

';.ncs frcm the streets af Rla: An eighteen veat ald black girl bla'k

t,,th!h on h finget and toenait\, \iling with her thrce 'hildten'

,r lbaard bax, and spon}e bed at the entrunce of a supetmarket in

Intnfala. Anine year old gi washingthe halr af her babv dallin the

u * in Cineldndia. .. She hasn't spoken with anvane sln? she was rcs'

t t r! fron thc elutches af the prostitutian maf a; her eves are nurky as

,t someone s pulted *lret dtupes aner thetu An odd bird found onlv

, ' ukt is perched upoh the bran.hes of a mdnga trce in Flamenla: Wha

t ],,tus wha pla.ed this fteak, missing the latlet half of his badv up

tlnre: he talks with his hands, and plays ehes with invisible pieces lhe

t I t i n with gangrene wafinghis tin can as he begs fot monev in Lopa

tt' sings sangs, re.ites prayers and hvmns swinging his shoulders in

,, 'lm.e dllhis own,tang ago drfien modbv the pain Passers bv hok)

t t ti t noses to avoid the runk steneh of hls leg

Street peapl? are the natwal vegetatian of the stteets of Ria ' whi'h

| ' tither o*rcd in dust at knee hish paols af mud' depending upon

t t) ' :a ason. They're strcwn ercrywhete fron the palm lined avenus

I t ruristy Copacabana ta the aut af'the way' wtetched slums, taking

't ,ttrdeh.e in the squates, ovetpasses, a church, hatel, testaurant'

',' I qaftment building entnn.es like so nanv narbles that sone

t , , nt walking through the streets of Rio had pulled out af her huge

t r, |t randomty scattered about Thousands hundreds ofthousands

1 t',jl,,tte bdlls hu ed beyond the spherc of humanitv with the 'en

','ttr rl fue of the wheel of ei'ilization mousands, hundreds of

tt, 't, iLls af people...

_l

106 Cirl in Cnmson Cloxl

Handless and atnle*, elephant'lessed, wooden legged ghouls

their heads wrapped in ban.lages, loaking as if they le just gatten out

af Aus.hwitz: btutdl, stunted d.lalescents running arcund in gangs:

hdlf-grown !4nls who get rupea an erety God given day af theit livesl

brcken winged pregnant women .aping wlth huneer fo( two all bv

themsetres; half wits i,lapped 1n rags who like skunks matk their tet

ritories with the odotuus clouds thdt extend arcund then for yads;

child bessarc .orcrcd in war wounds, fire wounds, and torture waunds:

elenentary sehool-aged childrcn wlth tub.t(ulosis, tra.hama AIDS

Rdving tunaties wha talk to themselrcs, burst out in ldughtea nds

turbdte, hwt profanities dese/1ied, definitely well deserved al

the humdnity reprcsented fo pax*s'by me elderly dinging an tt)

this world with then rcttun teeth, whilc ereryone else eagerly wait!

fa/ theh ta bite the Aust as soon as posslble The lords of honelest

sacieties dirided into .astes: Claim junpers, thie'res pickpo.kets

nafia eftand bays, infomers... The 'honorably v'otkins'niddle .lass:

selling tlckets, takens, co.onut candy, gtarana soda, and hatida flont

behindhand me down display eaunters- Families boundbv the bahl\

af inest, intriately intertlrining like ivy, heither the number, not thr

dses, not the parentage af their childrcn knawn fot .eftain. - Begtlars

struggting to wrangle every day, hour, minute they Qn out of Rrit

neatly zerc desree nercy ...

And then thete are those nha are so done faL thev'rc not ewn lit

to beg anymore. On the verge af stanation, they ha1r. atri,ed at th'

putest, simplest state of existence: neft living mattet They sl/,i,/'

rcnstantty, day and night, spread out on the sidewalk, at rc.lininl t

pools af nud, on wet con(rete, at on the sizzling asphalt mev slulr

canstantly, utte/ly impervious te, the anslaught of tropical rains thnt

cantinues unabated far weeks, the lethal sun, buses, the poliee' u lthe people who step oret them, bump their legs, and sometimes .uR

and sometines leave a slite of molay bread lt s a sleep that gradunll l

srows deeper, heaviet, clottell: a slo|r, fitful joutnet to the bo 1.' I

\ \ll lrdogln 101

the Land of the Dead... Theit deaths ate always silent, like a @ndle

' xtitguished by the wind. A death unencumbered by prayers, hynns,

u bugles. They don t yell, they don t scrcam, they don t rcbel. Because

therc is nabody rrho will listen to them. They anly resist. with that

rldest, most despente, most indomitable pdssion of the body, a will as

t .rgh ds sreel, layihg .laim ta that sliver af life still left within them,

t hey rcsist, and resist, and resist.. .

tnoTq: The settled peaple of Rio arc so disgusted by these reptiles that

iuh thei ,iews, turn their beautiful city ihto a lentuble open-air

f.ilct, a haspital, a .oncentratian amp, that thorcughly tuin theil

rrtutation in the eyes of forclgners ana keep then fron wandelinq

t tt streets without fear, that they la,ish the jtsticenos with money.

t t lacsn t cast mo.e thdn three, fi1)e hundreA do arc to da avtay with a

rt Be snatching st/eet kid loiteting at a kiosk. But in the pre-carnival

\!son, when it's a mdtter of tourist safety and national pride, pri@s

,,ny rocket up to as much as double the standard rates.

NEWWORLD

Death is the only thins

mat remains unwntten.

-Robert Pinget

liver since the military coup, thebackstreets ofLapa, Riot oldest

reighborhood, had been in the hands of the homeless, transves

rites, and footloose ex cons. Once the shops seling auto equip-

, n ent, electroni.s, spare parts, knives, and guns Puled down their

,neta1 shutters and secured their huge padlocks, the chaningDrulatto beles in theil g-stdngs and net stockings, and the nur(lcrous looking men who Lived off them, would take over. Even a

worldly wise migrant llke ozgiir would have a hard time Pound

ingthe pavement ofthese streets, which served men twenty fouy

l!)urs a day. fte most savage metropolis ofEurope was like a Boy

s.out camp compared to Rio. But the only stop where she could

,.rtch the Santa Teresa bus was located here, on a street lined

rrcm one end to the other with kiosk bar mutts knowi as "lun

,l,eonettes." In Rio. which lacked a caf6 cllture and had a climate

,L,rsuitable for indoor spaces, on every con€r you could 6nd a

l,,rcheonette, €ach one like a gaping dent chipped into the wall,

,,r a fake cave calved into a building, lacking a door or four wals

r,' de6ne it. 'Ihey were the center of gravity in the gastronomic

l,lr ofthe city. Customers wouldl€an on the long counters while

r[ y ate and drank, or setde into th€ fold up tab]es and chairs

rl,,rt.overed the sidewalks on those sizzling hot summer nights.

llr)ugh onc€ they had been equidistant, over time ozgur's soul

1,.!lbecome even less adapted to the tropics than herbody had.

r was only now that she understood the vital importance of being

.' ,lr ro sit in a tea garden ora caf€ for hours on end. Or of having

I

Ci!l in Crimson Cloar

breakfast standing up... It made her throw in the towel immedi

ately jn her duello with each new day, inevitably armed as it was

with a tuesh gamut oftraps, nastiness, ftacas, lies, and deceit.

Dozens of street people lived below the one hundred 6ftyyear old stone bridge, which was just wide enough for a sjngle

tram to pass. A iittle farther aiong, next to Lapa Square, was a

grandiose conservatory, its wall covered ftom top to bottom in a

.olotful Rio gravure. colden beaches; sharp cJiffs thumbing theirnoses at the skyistatues ofJesus, ihose permane.t fixtures ofRn)

postcards, suspended i. the air by some invisible force and look

ing as if they might fall flat on their faces any minutej a gigantn

spear of fire flung fiercely out of the heavens, dividing the city

straight down the middlej and the seven arrows of the rainbow

embedded in rhe ocean... Meanwhil€, on the other side stood Iseries of rundown buildings left over {ron Lapas glory days. A

few ofthem were repaired with state moneyand donated to AR I,

whi.h hardly has a say in these parts. A concert hall, an Afro

Brazilian cultural center. the streettheater called TaNaRra... th(Olenewa studio, founded by a Russian balledna who,like Ozgitr,

arrived in the New Wofld with a single suitcase and pale whir,

Just as it is possible to find a nook of one's own €ven in h.llitself, in lhis city Ozgur took refuge in the wooden, two-sl(try

ballet school. A safe harbor where she could cast anchor durinx

days otherwise spent adrift in nothingness... ln Rio she ea,l.rly

embraced this everso aristocratic, everso European alt forn tli'tshe dabandonedyears agot turning it into a vital ceremony, whi,11,

though it may have lost jts essence, still preserved its {ornr. lticorddors filled with the scent ofresin, the sound ofpiano trrrr,and perfectly postured, \qaf€r thin girls s.urrfng aboui llli.frightened pigeons, the Olenewa Studio was like any other l),rll.t

school in th€ worldj initially, however, Ozgur had been drzzlnl

by those parti.ular details of the Studio unique to tle tropics.

Iroy example, the road from the dressing room to the classrooms

rassed through a garden ofmango tlees and when the rainy sea-

,on began, it wouldbe covered in water puddles from one end to

rhe next. Buckets were placedin the classrooms to gather the rain

streaming in from the roof, and the drops that snuck in through

rhe windows, which wouidn't quite close all the way, would slap

r he dancers'sweaty shoulders. With the onset ofthe hot months,

rhe arbor in the garden wouldfiI Dp with monk€ysjunping from

Lranch to branrh, andbeautifulda* skinned girls waiting in line

l,)r ice .ream. And th€n there was the half c/a.ked, si.kly cat, a

rrrle tabby which, despite having grown up amongst humans,

,rcverbecame dom€sticat€d; it would wander the corridors grun-

l)liDg about this and that, lashing out in reproach at evely Tom,

l)rck, and Harryit happenedto tun into, as ifto say, "With life as

, wful as it is right now and a[ you people do is waste your energy

r,ying to stand on your toesl"'Ihree nights aweek she'd walk out of her ballet lesson, and-

rvrth the sound ofChopin's waltzes flitting in her ears, exhausted,

lr.r tongue stuck to the roof ofher dry mouth, but having under

|tn,e enough spiritual cleansing to endure the streets of Rio for

, while tonger shed slowly make her way to Ernesto. SheA let

lr r imagination get carried away as she envisioned that first fruit

I r c; the occasion assumed the a ure of a sexual fantasy, and she

Lrrrld derive a delicate pleasure from putting off her papaya-or

', ,1,' .ocktail, that elixir of life, as long as possible. Ihe sounds of

I ,\rtla ard samba rhyrhms would begin to emerge ftom the back

.r,,rts at those hours, and the impatient couples at the Afro-

r'.,1,han Center would leap to their feet fot the opening dan.e.

llnresto was the only Copacabana-style restaurant in Lapa,

Nl ,, h means it was a run of-the-mill rcstaurant with a door, {our

,v.rll,;, rnd air conditioning that hit you like a cold shower as soon

Cirl ii Cnmron Cl.rl

as you walked in. (SheA spent her lirst few months in Rio in a

state ofconstant illness be.ause ofthose air conditioners.In the

monthofMay, dressedin spring apparei, the instant plunge from

forty degrees to ifteen was like suddenly getting caught up in

a snowstom. Who would ve believed that shea have to carry .sweater with her at all times in the hottest city in the world?)

Locals never eat dinner alone in Rio, and so Enesto, iike all throther pretentious restaurants in the .ity, did not offe/ singlc

servings. Ozgur would grow red in the fa.e as she asked to have

half o{ her meal doggy'bagged for the next night's dinner, and

nearly apologize {or her in.urable loneliness. Friday nights wer.

especially crowded at Ernesto. Students from the conservatory,

musicians, people off to the theater, cinema, oropera... Laughtet

roli ng our rr bur.rs Lke oredni. sdves. rn, 'prsing in proporhon

wjth the amount ofbeerconsum€d... Ablindpiano player wearinil

sunglasses, much etrort having been invested jn his Ray Charlcs

1ook, played such trite tunes as'Autumn Leaves and 'Strangerr

in the Night,'to whi.h no one paid any attenrion, except fot

Ozgr r rnd r lew old drunk<. No marr"" how -. gred she wr,not to give in to cheap sentimentalism, Ozgtu colldn't stop th,

teats from weliing up in her eyes. Her loneliness would sprcarl

throughout her body like a pain with no known source, and h

need to love and be loved would become a matter of life or deatl'

SheA convince herselfthat love was the only thingthat made lilfcompassionate, meaningful, or at leastbearable. And sometimor,

if she was having a lucky day, a familiar face passing by wou|lnoti.e Ozgul's somber profile on the other side of the g)ass an,l

.ome in to.hat with her for the duration ofabeer. No matter wh,,

it was, the son ofher formerlandlord, the cashier from the sup.,

market, a nameless face sheA met months before at a con.err, hn

would wrap herup in a warm enbrace andgrow livelierand nrhhll.rtive by the minute. Lonely people always talk too much. V'r

,Lrch miracles (fleeting and unimportant, but mihcles nonethe

l.ssl) would disappear just as qui.kly as they had appeared; the

htrddy" in question would grow tired of the g/inga's impossible

',)rruguese enunciation, her vexingly slow speech, and her lack o{

,rowledge she knew nothing ofVeioso's latest record or wbatrihe the Ipanema concert was-and wor.rld soon head otr on his

w.ry, but only a{ter having invited her to an outdoor party or a

,l,in.e ha1l, as decorum would have it... Ozgur woutd feellonelier,

|ore de{eated, more exhausted than ever She'd review the su

t! rfi.ial conversation in her head once again,laugh to herselfat a

l, w of the jokes shed made, and wel up with pide at having told

' i oft repeated story with a little more finess€ this time around.rri)ill, she would curse Rio for naking her beg for such vapid

, ,,Lmbs of .ommunication, and, at the pinnacle of self-destruc

,,,n, she would escape to the Afro Brazilian Clltural Center jn

.rr.h of easily obtainable physical .onsolation.

At that moment, more than anything else she needed Emesto's

r m, pea.eful atmosphere, impervious to pain as it was, just

t [r an old musical. A fortress that neither .haos nor the jungle

,, 'r the sanla coutd penetrate... fte cramps in her stomach had

' ,,r yet subsidedi her nasal passages were still on 6re fron the

.,r,rine. What she wouldn't do for a heavenly sc€nted papaya

1,,. with a few chunks ofjce swimming inside... Two dollars and

'!, fty centsl "Luncheonettes the only place frt for a pauper like

,' sbe thought. "I get thirsty every fifteen minutes anlvay.''lr. ,lecided to buy a forty'cent cup of coffee at O Nouo Mrndo

r,. New World) and delve back into her green notebook. She

, , , ,l( d to pick up from where she d left off and continue writing

A Drulatto in his rwenties was llng on the sidewaik; he'dI ' l' ,, asleep ieaning against one of the columns that stood in

r"' ., (loor at lhe New World. He had a startlinsly handsome

!

Cirv in (.'m\rr Clorl

fa.e, wjth an expression like that of a young boy, surPrisingly

innocent {or someone living on the streets. She {elt like covering

him with a blanket and planting a goodnight kiss on his cheek

sheamadeherway up the misshapen stcpwben she realizedthat

the young mans legs were swollen like a couPle ofdead dolpbins

Elephantiasisl During the dry season, the legs of street peopic

would swell up like goutds and be covered in festering wounds

During the frnal slages ofthe illness, they would no longer be abk

to walk and, resigning themselves to a spot in front ot a restau

rant or lun.heonette, they would entrust theil lives to the very

limited,andunreliable,mercyof humankind lthadbeenthteedr

four months since sbed en.ountered rhar well groomed womrn

with the beautiful, made'up face. Ihe woman had been sitting rn

front o{th€ same column, on a skateboard like pjece ofwood wrll,

wheels:from rhewaistdown, shewas no more. On her.lean, whill

t shirt it said, rEsus LovEs You.lt was Tolstoywho believedthrl

love and benevolence made the world go round, right? Ozgiir h.r,l

started praying againi an uncontrollable urge prompted her l,'

repeat the same words every time she en.ountered sone bealrrr

or wounded person, especially one missing a lnnb lhree tim|iA simple refrain .alling upon her personal god, from whom slrherselfno longer really etpe.ted much assistan.e, to help TtlliN.l

On some days she sawso manyofthem that she spentalmosr tlrentiyety o{ her long walk praing. A psy.hologist, a psy.holo,rrr

who had never been to Rio, could easily have explained the silrr

ation as a 'fear o{ castration and, unfortunatelt may have bu ,,

right in his assessment.

She staggered hef way inside. Struggling with the dizziD, r '

rnd the nausea, she took big, bojsterous, .owboy steps (liklilialways did when walkinginto such places). Despite its high{alolrr

name, Ihe New World, the nost popular th/ee star hotel iD llr,'

was just another hole in the wall, a glorified lun.hconette Ii,rrr

,,r five wobbly tables were lined up next to the now gray cerami.

ri cd wall. She thought the restaurant, long and nanow with itsl,,w ceiling, dalk ar aI hours, looked like a subnarine. And so

l i e'd nicknamed it "Nautilus.' I}e combination of water seeping

, r,r irorn beneath the doors of the toilet, whjch was always kept

,,.ked, and rhe increasingly potent stench ofburnt grease, rotten,,rrnges, and beer as one progressed inside, did not really make

r,). an appetizing locale. As if to spite Ernesto, whi.h was jusr two.rrps down the way, the New World s clientele consisted ofbums,

l{.en there, done thatk," pimps, andjailbirds. Unlike those well-

l,'.d kids doing their best to look lawless, or the middle class

' ilk and-warel rogues, these were real .riminals just trying tolL(,k normal.'Ihey kept their cover, nevergot caught red-handed,

,,rl balanced their perfecdy flat, shallow worlds on their guns.

rl,r only other reSulars at'Ihe New World were the poli.e. And

l r only ditreren.e between them and the "criminals they foughtr,r)th and nail for a slice of the market pie was that their guns

'r, rc on display for a1l to see. Otherwise they had the sane dark,

'lrrlchral eyes, the sane gaze, drunk on power and brimmingv,.r with the bloc,d theyA consumcd... It was Rio that had shown

, i/J]tu that order and cbaos were inseparably bound to one an

, rl,.r. the.riminal world that she had once exalred with that,, ,,i.Dticisn indoctrinated by movies had now become nothingI' ,r .r.oftmon, repulsive detail ofher dailylife.

ttr' , a/? .t"ad, rhpad. O/gur did r qu c

ihc .orners of her ey€s, taking in no nore, and no tess, than,, L,ssary. Ihe relative calhness o{ Sunday evening had perme

r, ,l rhis pla.e, tooj there wasn t a soul jn the joinr except for a

' , , L r l, of drunkards, all of them black, entertaining themselves at

rl'1. in the veryback. Armando, fie onlywaiter who didn't look

, I )r!urwith invasive, greast derisiveeyes, was standingbehind,l', otrnter, placingfr€sh out of the-oven.ociiras chickenless

t'J 'n

r'l ' l,nn . j.I

roled in cassava starch and then fried onatray Hehadn tdpped

Ozguroff, notevenonce, in thewhole twoyear. *he; h..f therel

hed always brought het her change right away, elact down to thc

penny, and had patiently taught her the menu in those davs i{hen

her Portuguese was pitifully poor, and eve. wrote checks for her

sometimes. (Ba.k then nobody used cashbecause of the inflation

rate. which hovered at several thousand per.ent )

Silent as a shadow she stipped into a seat at a table, its whlt{

paper bbiecloth covered in huge tomato sauce strins left behirrl

by previous cuslomers. She bad her back to the toil€t and th|

group ofdrunkards. But no matter how hard shc tried, she coull

not make he/self invisible! Before she <t even had a chance to catr Ir

herbreath. she heard a woman's voice, harsh, cracked, the wor{l!

rolling in h.r mouth like hotpotatoes''Het looky there, our GRINTIA s backl Did you guys know slr,

It was the retired whole, now too old to ply her tYade, l|irOzgur used to run into almost every njght at Lapa back w|r'rr

she and Roberto were together. She was one of tLp pYtr:s in r''

City in Crimsan Claak. The 6nal link in the chain of.oincidd!. '

had now fallen into place. SheA ph.ed a lictional conversrtt,'r,

between O. and this woman in the chapter about the parlv Lr'

Santa Teresa held in honor of Nelson Mandela's ele.tion I'lr

really had taken part in such a celebration, where she ha.l r,rv' 'lagainst racism amongst the crowd ofAfto Brazilians, but sh l,"'l

been so drunk that night that she .ould not for the lifo "l l" r

remember whom sh€A taked to. Turning her head but rr r lr I

back, she gave a vague, tesene.i greetlng She hadn t yct , r'r111't

Armando s eye. She lit a cigarette. The back table had brok, rr 'r'rin a flurry of voi.es; she picked out a few wods, variationr

"rr il"

term biack,like prer, and,eglo. It had bee. a year and a h.rll r/r'r I

she and Robetto had broken upi but it seemed that in lli| r'vp' "r

l.apa's black communitx he was to remain herlover, in this worldrndthe next. theyadored Roberto... He $'as black, an orphan, an

.rl.oholic, and "a famous actor" ifthafswhatone shouldcaltthelrading man at ?a Nr Rl]d Iheater-who d dropped anchor in the

uorld ofthe whites and managed to stay afloat...

O,gur had gone to a lot of Lrouble to erase him from her

,rcmorr in fact, Roberto was the only person of the many she

l,id met in Rio not to infiltrate her novel. He was a man made of.,r1, oninous clouds and iightning, bitter like poison hemlock;

rlie term "psy.hopath" frt him like a glove. A "rape babt" to putrr in his own words... His mother, who diedwhen hewasjust two

v, irs old, had been a kept woman. the players at Ta Na R,a said

rl,it he was the only black person in Brazil who couldn't dan.e.

ll, was short, puny, hardly attractive, but his lively eyes, which

.rshed like fireflies, darting from one object to the next, made

1' ,r singularly endeadng. Bc.iuse they didn't share a language,

,,,ir relationship had been based upon physical communication,l ,, rhc mo r vinle or rll fur m. ot . onnur,, arion Ozgur .

' ,,r months in Rio had been so painful, her loneliness amongstrl, rimless throngs so agonizing thar she'd tried wirh al1 her

', ')tht to wring some smidgen oflove, atrectjon, or something to, [,,dlcir place, out ofthis stark raving madmanj a foo]'s errand,

'1., squ.ezing oil out ofa Ry. For every gasp ofpleasure cost her, rly, each paid for with nulriple lashings of humiliadon. In, 'link of any eye the gringa, who held her body in no esreem!

', . ,.,rsi]y duped and, utteriy ignorabt of the Byzantine games of

'., turned inro a sex slave. the Middle Easteh beloved of a|

' . ,, Roberto had taken herby her gaunt shoulders and forced

L ,fro the dungcons of passion where she thrashed sweetly in

llr.y d ru. into one anoth€r countless times. Rio, the.itythar,r I',. you in its net oniy to abandon you to a blind roll of fate's

( irv itr (,I'nson Clorl

dice, brought the two o{ them together on numer

At parties, cinemas, concerts, and once even right in ftont of

her oM apartment... lt was as if he were the dark refrain in her

song of death. He seduced the gri,ga with his harsh gaze every

time. Even afrer that night... Even after that night wh€n he had

squeezed her breasts and twisted her arms untii she'dbegged for

mercy... "What couid possibly keep me from doing evil in a clty

where murder goes unpunished? Anything goes in wal. I}Iats

the slogan shed had framed and hung on her consclen.e. The lasr

!ime, theyd come face to face on the Santa Teresa bus, .lose to

dawn, after the Juninlo festival, a celebration of pagan origin

Hed scrutinized Ozgurt inanimate face, a statue in marbie, will)

undeceivable, sneering eyes, and given her a smile that stunglikr

a knife wound. "You're so much stronger now. Rio helped yo

discover your secret weapons. But you're still as fragile as evc',

too. Youjust can't quit chasingafter that thingyou fearthe mosr.

What remained of Roberto, whom sheA locked away in ,

quarantjne cell of her menorn was a feeling of having b&rr

soiled, a feeling that was like a permanent stain upon her ber1].

and the hours she'd spent by herself on the second floor of th'theaterwhile she waited for him on those neverending reheari 'lnights. Dances perfotmed on e stage ftaught with cracks, the ri,,I

echo of foolsteps in an abandoned hal, black velvet .urtiirir,rats the only audience... Rows and rows of costunes and mr:Lk,

on hangers... lheater was a world in which truth and lies w, r.intertwined, where blatant fabd.ation was transformed irt,' ,

living, breathjng, vital teality a1l its own. An absolutely pc'lr 1

metaphor for Rio, the.ity that never removes its mask, not rvrl'

"Hey, g/l,gal Look herel'

here was no es.ape. Reluctantly, Ozgiir turnedaround.

"You k.ow what? they're calling me a racist because I told

them your lover was black. Do you think that makes me a rac

Ozgur was caught offguard. To tell the truth, it was an unex

re.Ledlyprickly question. "No, why?" was all she could manage in

'Ihe woman started screaming at the top ofher lu.gs."See therel Take that for an answerl I'm not racist at all. Even

'lhis time a .acophony ofvoices rang out from the table, from

s'hich she was able to dis.ern rhe words Turk and Turkey. She

, ouldn't tell exactlywhat was going on, she only knew tbat a heat

,\l discussion about her was underway. She nervously putred at

i. r cigarette, exhaling noisily each time. Damn itl If only I hadn't

l! en su.h a cheapskate andjustgone to Ernestol" she thought.''Hey gringd. Why you so quiet? nis gal's so damn shy! Shoulda

:i en her when she frrstgothere, fresh ftomTurkey.-. She'dgo a1l

,rrl in the face even when she danced. She's opened up a bit now

lliough. He, tell me, how doyou say'.irzeiro'in Turkish?"

She felt her heart tighten in her chest. theyd pierced her

,,lotional armor just like that. In the two years since shed set

l,{)t in South Ameri.a, no one, not her lovers, her colleagues,

I .r students, her European friends, none o{ then had asked her

singie question abour her mother tongue. She welled up with

rr.rtitude, and resentment. And rhat miserable, ash gray feeling

''Kriluk. Ashtray is ku1luk."

'lhe woman djdn't listen to her response. She was having fun

',.,king rhe financially carcfree gfinea, little miss Snow White,

.frc to her tune. A rare opportunjty to play 6rst 6ddle at the

''Anahow ahorr'mon ano r'?"

Ciry in C mson Clo.k i2l

i

From the table boisterous laughter, amorous moans, and loud

slurpy kissing sounds began to rain down upon OzgLit She was

surrounded on all four sldesj she rneekly Yesigned heYself to the

role assigned to her, as always.

'' Seugilim;'

"What? Say that again.

"SEV Gi LiM. Now enough with the questions, pleasel"Ihen

sheyelled out: 'Armandol A milk coffee Please.'

She turned het back to tbe hoopla that was graduallv get

ting out of control and raised her shield to rhe oltside world

She cringed, as if trlng to make herself smaler, thicker, mor'

conpa.t. As ifher bony shoulders were her only defense againsr

this city whi.h stuck a thorn in her heart every hour' She nevct

hadbeen bEzen, quick'witted, or good with a.omeback. Like all

timid and open heattedpeople, she was easilytransformed int(' iplaything in the hands ofthose many times stupider than hers.ll

Shewas, aftet all, agnngaj she didn't stand a chanceagainst th.M'

tipplers, notwith her stiff, slang free Portuguese. As sh€ rea.hrrl

forher cigarettes, shenoticed that heY hands wele shakitg B.l'rcoming to Brazil, she thought that such a thing haPpened onlv rI

figures in novels or women on the verge of menopause "Hnvr I

reallybeen insulted, or cant I even take a little well-intentn!!'l

teasing anymore? I truly am at the endofmy rope 'She'd lonl l',gotten all about het first cigarette, which ivas still burning iw v

on its own in the ashtray.

thankfully a doll-{aced mulatto o{ twelve or thirteen w,rllfrl

into the New World, moving al1 attention away from Ozgiir I rl' 'aI girls of Rio her ag€, she wore a ton of make-up and wrr t"

scantily clad that it was mind boggling lhe purple lipsti.k r n r lN r

thick ljps reminded Ozgiit ofdamson ptums. She swagg.n\l lrrl"

the barlike a femalepanther, tossing her hair violentlv ,bor rl lll',

a shawl on fiie, looking ferociously determined to seduce a rr y t rrr t,

rvho crossed her path. She displayed her breasts, which spiledour of her brassiere, and her iush, shapely hips with appallingre.klessness and abandon, the same way greenhorn gangsters

display their latest nodel pistols. this body, whi.h had lost itsinno.ence much too young, and which was cast about with rhe

,,xtravagan.e ofa prodigal daughter squandering her inheritance,

ade ozsur-and probably ozgur alone feel sad. Like aI o{rl)e other Dass'cloned women o{ Rio, the girl had intenalizedL dcsire that was not her own; she had become a mouthpiece forrhc lust for power, proclainingloud and clear the insatiability ofI rsli, as dictated by this city. Like a puppet hanging by her strings,lic was tangled in the binds of hel sexuality, and there was no

, (ape. When tourists who stormed tuo in quest of second handLrrasies saw h€r they immediately began fondling their wallets.\i.r she wasn't a real professional, even if she didput herbodyup,), sale, sometimes out of frnancial need, but most of the time, :,1 lor the tiny thrjll of it, or for a chanee... Ltke nos! girls {romrl! /are1a, she was a daytime beauty. A violet mushrooming jn

Like wolves having caught a whiff ofblood, all ofthe waiteis,

' \,, pt for the shy Armando, were watching rhe girlt hips as she

,,,,l, her way to the table ofnegroes. Her shorts, ripped here andrI ,.,, , stopped a few centimeters above her ass. She obviouslywas

' ,'r ,,ied to restrictions sucb as underwear. "WANTED"was writ,'

',,,, her tits in strawberry colored lipstick. Ozgtir co!]dn't hetp, t lrugh. Of course you're WANTED sweerheart. It's hardlyI , I l)pc diamond that you're peddiing there, but it is the most

r!AN J llD thing in the world aI the same.

Ll,, 1e]t the slender shadowofArmando glide up next ro her. Ar,'i' l .{)ft likethatof awoman,afraidof infiictingdamage, gently. l',., ( up on lhetable. OzgLirraisedhereyes; theysmiiedat one,,,rl',.' lhe knowing, innocent smiles of confidants... Armando

C,t) ri Crimvin Clort

was a slightly hunchbacked, wiry mulatto; he had cuYly hair arld

long, black eyelashes. His face had the 6ne lines of a miniaturc

and it refiected a misery shut offto the outside world, a stotm not

yet calmed... Ozgtu sensed a tra.e of Middle Easterness in him;

maybe one o{ the Syrians, O ?ur.o, who had migiated to Latin

America at the turn of the century, had tumbled in thc hay wlth

She ta,rapped both hands around the gtass and freed her mind

of any thoughts. with a slight slurping sound aftet all, therc

werenrt any spectatots around tc, rnake her observe the rules ol

etiquette-and rolling the cream on her tongue, she finished her

drinkinalmost a singlegulp. Sbe was coveredin sweat again, an(i

had failed to quench her relentless thirst, but at least her stom

achwas settled. Finall, she was alone with her .igarettes and h.r

Unlike the touristy bars of Copacabana, this pia.e didn l

contain the slightest hint ofthe tropi.s;no fishing nets, bdghtly

colored partots, seasheils, naive Bahia paintings, €tc. On th.

wal, marked with long cracks running through its plaster, hunli

a Japanese miniature-a woman wandedng in a cherry tree or

chard with a placid smite on ber fa.e, and a slighrly bewildel.ll

gaze, as she warched the insanity of the New World And ncrr

to her was a tsyazilian nag left ovey from the days of the worl,l

Cup. nrere was a globe, siightly squished on either slde-prob

ably slmbolizing the world-with a pendant stuck ln ir that r.rrl.System" and "Ptogress." An extraordinary irony rhat could makr

Ozgur laugh even after two yearsl

For a while she distractedherselfwlth the fly that kept conrintl

back for more ofthe tomato sauce stajn lhat looked like a mosqtr'

wjth three minarets. She got a whiff of the scent of fresh coll.r

weaving its way amongst the tables. Should she have anot|.r

cup? She tookher green notebook out ofhe/bae

Whenever she want.d to take a profound look into her per-

sonal history, she had ber last two years right there waiting for

her. woven, braided, varnished, tailored menories... Half 6n

ished stories, frist-person confessions, quotes...

Like fields afwhedt, the Brazilians were blown this way and that by the

tuihds of so.ial e'ehts; Mother's Day, the Aeath of Aytton Senna...AnA

then, after Valentihe s Day, they got .aught up 1n ahothet instance

af mass hysteria: the watA Cup. cane days were de.lated natianal

holidays: buses quit /unning and shops closed down aliet two in the

oftctnoan. An entire couhtty, evetyane from nine to ninety, .ldd in

ydkN, wielding ffags of all sizes and snat.hing up bugles, drums, ta-

han, whistles, rattles, etc., anything that &uld be used tn make noise:

hodrdine frleworks, confetti, beer; g.aups af dt least twenty people

t,a(ked into houses, bals, rcstaulants, and @n.ert halls equipped with

nassite television screehs. Beause tudtching the natianal games by

rn.. s self was @nsiderea b be ane af the worct dlsasterc that .ould

r*ibly befall a hunan being, even I was barraged with inritations.

It was an early afternaon in July. The ruin pourcd aotrn, as if eager

t a tear the tity asunder, to cleanse it of all its fikh. mere wdsn't a soul

the stteets. All transportatlan hatl come ta a hak, the metal shut-

t o s were pulle.l dawn an all af the shaps, and even the honeless had

ln e aeo escaped to whatever sheter they could find. The Russia game

*tuld be starting in half an haur. Meanwhile I was trying to make

tt hame. the only place wh.fe I could take refuge ltom the immihent

I rdn into him at the entrdh.e to a matie theate. in CinelAndia...

t b 't name him alter fve des(nbed hin-wds lyin| in a puddle

.l nud sercral inches deep. Needle sharp &aplets af ruin ple/.ea his

lr. t. Ihough he had not yet erossed aver the threshold to dedth, he had

t t , tainly drifted so fat fton the shates of life thdt thete was na tutnihg

t',(k. He was abaut ta die af hunger. Hk body had betrayed his soul,

Cirv,n Crim!!r Clork

expelling the last bite he'.] had to eat. With his last aunee of strength

he tried ta rcach his wmit-so that he auld eat it on e again.

Nobody paid any attentioh to him. A few strcgglerc s.urtied acrcss

the nearly empty square, rushing ta make it in time fat the game: dfte tall, they were used to the many ond rdtied perfarmances of death

Only I stood there, motionless, undet the ruinstarm, my fd.e drained

to bone white.It was as if Id tuned to stane.I coul.l heither.ry nor

yell; a tisht fist, a silent scrcam .aught in my thrcat I recalled a fi|nIA seen years ago. (Fiction versus .edlity! But to what degtee 4n tht

former possibly save yau ftom a one on one conftontation with the

latter?) The Anerican protagonist ih the f,lm was talking about th.

most drcadful hunger he had seen 1k his life, at a seclud.d hatel in th!

mlddle of the trapics: A native pi.kins out the undigested pie.es frcn1

anongst a pile of hunan fe.es...I was sick at my stomach fal days, ldidn't think that there rculd possibly be a more in.isive dessiptio

of hunger. But the naked realiq of the strcets of Rio w

atrceious than the mast atrociaus af fi.tions. With a few bLows of thr

hannet it had engraved a pottnit of hun4et inta ny mind.

I simply must tell, tell everyone abaut that mdn whom I encoutt

tered in Cinelandia half dn haur beforc the start of the Bla2il'Russ t

socer mateh, that is, at a precisely definable point in time ahd spa.l

Mhether they want ta listen ot noL) me price must be paid for that

scrcan that got caught in my throat. I was .ursed be.ause I did natl'

ing but stond there and wat h him like that for severaL ninutes, beti, t.ontinuing along ny ||ay. Because therc was nothing ta be done, hl

cause I didn t fnd a spoon and feed hin his puke, because all of tltkiasks wele closed, and a bis.uit would never ha,re nd.le it on tinr .

because I didn t dtaw a pistol ftam my purce and put a quick end ta lti!

nisery... What did I hare to affer him? To deny hin? I @ntinued on h'v

way, far I had charyed nyself with d 'lissian.

An excuse fot pastpon it+l

Yet now, as I laok at the letterc I have lined up on the white tit\ |

of papet before me, 1 cannot see that man l still lack the langudge to

cxptesshim.I am not st.ang enough, not vicious enough not nerciful

cnough. I hate nat experienced enough hunger. Words cannot gtue hin

ba.k his tife, but at lcast they can offet his nane restitution: He was a

She was suddenly overcome by an odd feeling, as ifher own sen

tences hadjust done an about face and had begun watching their

ruthor. She grabbed her pen and struck a big X across the page

T]len she wrote a single sentence:

''I write ta shon nyselflaryer thanI leally dm, because Iansoverv

As she i{alked up to the .ash register, a well-kept homeless wonan

walked into the Newworld and, raisinghervoice evervso slightlv,

asked: Anyone here want to buy me a meal?' Measured, polite,

kindly, like an abashed co ege student asking the other passen

gcrs ifthey have an extra bus tlcket lhere was no response; onlv

ozgur lowered het head in shame lhankyou," the woman said,

bowingher headbefore rnaking a silent exit,like an extrawho had

successtully conpletedher insignificant role. Ihe prostitute, who

had faced het share of adversity in life, ye ed out tuom the table of

{lrunkards:"Tris jsn t theTrjtdWorld, youknow irt the Eighth

World! Ihe Eighthl"

Ozgur looked at the young man with the swollen legs, and

rhought the woman was right. He was curled up like a tetus next

lo one of the columns. He stjll wore that miYaculous, pure, in_

no.ent look on his fa.e. "lhjs is an indigent peoPle, clothed onlv

in its om luster... Making do with a love of ljfe, o{ unknom.nrr.e... Yetwhat they.al life is nothingbut so much deception

A banalgirnmi.k passing forhappiness "

She regretted not having said goodbye to Armando. She felt the

kind of sentimentaljtt generaliy resewed for prisoners spendlng

their last day injaili she wanted to leave behindgood impressions

of herself. She wenr back to nre New World. Together with thc

mulatto girl, Armando and the other three waiters were standing

next to the tabl€ of Negroes. Ihen, a1l at once, evety single soul in

the restaurant broke out in riotous laughter. "Who an I to thinkI have a nonopoly on reality? I'm probably the last person in Rn)

who sho d be talking about happinessl" She managed to grab

the attention ofthe busboy standing in ftont of the coffeemaker

she convinced the kid, who was looklng at the WANTED hips likc

he was peeling a banana, to give hel a paper cup full o{ nilk. As

she walked over to the kitten screaming in fea/ on rhe sidewalk

opposite, she feltlike a vern very oldwornan, who no longer ha,l

any er?ectations of ljfe.

A TRAVELBR IN THE STREETS OF RIO_THE MULATTO WOMEN OF RIO

]f there is any netropalis on this eatth that belangs to mulattn women'

it is Ria de Janeiro. A nulatta waman is an essential detail of any Rio

phato taken at any time ot' the day, in any part af the .ity The mulatto

wonan of the stums, with het .urly hair, thi& lips, full hips bwsting

.ut of her .lathes, .ross hanging frcn het n\k . vau ean see het at the

luncheanettes: she lean! agdinst the baL d(lnk ng a beer and talking

sdssy; in ftant af the chur.h she colleds donatians, a diline radiane

onanatihg flom he/ fa.e... Childrcn af all sizes hang anto het skirt at

the supermarket as she lugs fiE poun.l bags of beans . On the side

tudlks af Capa.dbdna, she s put on het wat paint, tdken up het arns'

md dannedher net sto.kings,knee high boots,leather g strings, etc

On the cove.s afsanba.asrettes,hatnaked and mwned with parrat

lcathers tallet than she is, she hdppily radiates big sniles and shakes

het hips with alt her night. Oh a dust covercd bus to the dums after

tightfatl half dead aftet twelve haurs of serving athers her eyes two

tlried upwells she eats her elening fteal fron a dinher bucket on her

lap. M.rc than anytfiete eke, though, youll see her on the beach .

t ike d nermdid .leposited upan the shotes by the o.ean waves . Het

hair wet: lips sme ins of coc.,nut milk; a .drelessly vttapped pareo:

runificent, east-going, frkky hips; skin pampered by the suntavs'

t.nstant fondling... Contary to popular belief, the mulatto women

,tf Ria arc not beautifuL that is, not a(ording to Western standatds

'thpy'te shart, fnt, stubby... But they are sa utterly stunning, and they

npase thei. attra.tiveness trith su(h abahdan that, in Ria, Wonah

Ci1\ i. Crinrn)n a.)l

It k these wamen wha attrai the epiurean, pampercd |Jlngo tn

th4.t^ whprc l'fe r a fisht 'o thp dcoth bpguF aae^

of ewry ddy. It is they who make the gringo toss his noney abaut lik.@nfetti... In the hlink of an eye they transfatm this rat race of a third

world metrcpolis into a tropical island. A fictional island existine anly

on toutist postets, full of golden beaches, paln trces, and seashells .

They walk with lithe, rhythmk steps, always, as if they arc errying bunches of bananas on their heads, or doing the samba in slow

motion... Theit heads ih the clouds,.alm. relaxed... They tualktowd ran inrisible loret who stands waitlngwith open arms. .. An enchantinr

poem vthispering in thet ears, they smile at the passianate mirrot ih

the enptiness. Infinitely awarc of thelt fenininity, they hold complett

.laim over their badles, whi.h haue nerer belanged ta them. . Hdll

drunk on theit devastating power-d pawer as fleeting as a wild

flower they hold folth the prcmise af forbidden fruits nare valuabll

On the plantations they leatned oh the tettible pillaging of thtbady. .. and of the body\ value, and its plice. .. The whip was thejr ftsttea.her. The, know that the world of wo ds ferments in their hips, ahlthat betueeh theit legs is concealed not the pen that wtites history, but

the wheel that extinguishes life. maugh song lyfts nake them senti

nental and provoke genuine tears, and thaugh they worchip rcuntlrst

deities ftan saccer playerc to the gaod heatted Jesus, and though thtybe doormats for one nan to the next until they become winkled antl

frayed, they know. 'Ihe bady never forgets lessans taught by the whi,The nulatto wonen of Rio ate tough ladies. mey have no qudL t

about giring the men they dspirc ta seduce long, lecherous looks, rtabout gtoping at taulists who ga2e fton blue, bleary, laslless eycs, r rabaut p@ing in the middle of the strcet. met speeeh is laud and b.ittelaus: they stuflle in hai rending bnwlq they defy the poli.., Ir\drivers, their bosses, and their husbands. Perhaps that is wlry thry

sLubbotnly clinq ta their nutubet one ranking in international vialor I

a"d AIDS stastns. ,€.arse they ve grawn |p thtee generaLians in a

ringleroan, their sexuality knows no shane or enbattassndnr l1i/r!r

they find thenselves laden with a babi, the keepsake of a night of pas

sion, befare they w ekn hit fifteen, they feel neither tage nor sadne::s

It is as if erery disappointment, e@ty let dawh, every child further

f.ttif,es their femininity. In this (ity, whi.h daes not all.w then tu)

be anything but women, they have rcnained, until the end, wanen

]UST WOMEN,

me bld.k skinned, black eyed, blatk hairad ulatta dail1 the

sanbawith death aUherlife...Its stygian, abysndl, pernanenr ddrk

ness is within her bady.Inhubody only... Buaae she has no souL ltwas taken fton hr long ago.

POINT ZERO

Let the dead bury the dead.

-lhe Bible

In Lapa, which is like an anthil teeming with homeless people,

she wouldn't dare take her watch out of her purse, but she could

tell it was around six o'.lock. An evening fuJI of distant shadows

was well underway, and the streets had grown silent.It wasnt the

silence that pre.edes a storm, but a silence containing a storm...

A vague, somber sign of the night... In a little while, the world

would dose its agedeyes.

ozgrir stood at the fofk in tle road glancing indecisively

right and left. Sh€ had two choices: She could either walk down

cloria Avenue to the Flamengo cul{, or she could go to Cinelandia

Square, famous for its cinemas, night clubs, and open-ai/ beer

gardens. Cinehndia... lbe Land of Cinema...

Aposter caught her eye:lhe dashing, renomed director with

Broadway erpedence, Sergio Mancini, had adapted the MUsIcaL

oF TllE YEAR: ROMEO AND JULTET, that "drama that never grows

old," for the people of Rio a people that thought of life itselfas

nothing but a musical. Dark skinned Romeo of rhe favela, who

nevertheless somehow managed to avoid a life ofcrime, and nilkwhite, inno.ent Juliet o{ Ipanema... In this city, the allure of the

flesh uuly did supersede all class and racial ditrerencesj however,

it did so to one exclusive end; satisfying the flesh. 'Ihe other day

sheA read a modern version of Romeo and Juli€t on the crime

pages of the newspaper. A bandito from the Turano favela con

vinc€d his lover (a university gnduate, .areei woman, wedthn

ctc.), a girl fron lpanema,who alsohappenedto be inr.olved with

Cily in Crinson clo.l

tle chiefofanother sans and had rneanwhile nanaged to poach a

hefty anount ofcocaine, to come to Turano;there, at tle squar€

kJ.olm as Boca da Funa he subjected her to honendous torture,cutting off her hands, tongue, and ears, before killing heL theincident was kept secret for months, until the Romeo of Turano

was kiued in a gun battle. "Oh, lovel that which males the worldgo rcund!" Ozgiir thought with a smirk as she looked over theposter. And tlere it was, the name she had been searching for: Eli

Vitot de Santos. As Romeo...

fte Land of Cinena was Elit homeland. It was through th€

din and dank bars, gay clubs, and S&M shows-the ones withoutneon lights or signs-of Cirelandia that he guided OzgrjJ und€r

the faint glow of a nashlight. On Friday evenings theyd leave

their AfricaD dance course and have a glass of frcsh coconut iuiceat one ofthe luncheonettes b€fore h€ading off into the night, irsdarkness pjerced only by the glint ofblades. Bars with no women,

where no one paid ozgiir any mind, full of smothering clouds

of cigarette and marijuana smoke, reeking of the sweaty

bodies of men wheye, disguis€d as desire, Azrael, the Ang€lof Death, lurked, on the prowl for his next victim... Half"naked negroes with shaved heads, bearing whips Dd chains;

transvestites in g strings and net stockings, who could run dngs

around any woman; show queens, barrels of horrnones with fake

fingernails as long as carrots and hips as wide as pilows... Once,

dzgiir nearly fainted while watching a queen, her be y hanginS

dom over her thighs, perform a show with dildos. Laughing

hystericallt Eli picked ozgiir up and carded her outside. "Oh you

poor Turkish girl! Ihat was obviously more tian you can handlel'(]lre queen was a high school history teacher by day; and the club,

which served up generous heaps ofgesh at night, was a vegetar-

ian restaurant until ten.) On some nights Eli would get the urg!to "play normal," and on those nights hed use the money bed

managed to wrangle out o{ his lovel to whisk Ozgur off to the

five star bars oflpanema.lhey were always on each other's 1aps,

getting frisky, hau in fun, half in eanest, putting on dances that

were risqu6 even for tuo.

But all of that came to an end on Jrhinho Night. fte pagan

festival, Juninio Night, whenballoons full ofcandles and lanterns

explode in the skyone aftet the otler...'I'll be there in a bit l'mheading out now," Elihadsaidontle telephone. Just how long had

she waited for him in that pub? Maybe four, maybe five hours

there with those packs ofdegenerates, under a deluge of molesta

tions, trying to ignore the propositions, ridicule, andglances that

crawled over her body like slimy leeches... rinaily, shea dashed

out to catch the last bus to Santa Teresa, been attackedby street

kids at the square, suflived an attempted robbery, and thrown

the birthday present that shed gotten fot Eli-Oscar Wilde's De

P/ofu"dis-into the trash. ADd then she'drun into Roberto

she didn't head off to Cinelandia. she preferred the consum-

mate rogues of Gloda to the inebriated masses storming the

Sunday night Hoil)'wood theaters, and the cokeheads to the

young-tough mamas boys. ln the late evening hours, before

night set in and the streets were left to the homosexuals, the

square reminded her of Sundays during her early youth 'Ihose

suffocating years ftom which even the othei side o{ the ocean

offered no escape... Family picnics, sunflower seeds, black-and-

white American TV shows, nev€rending homework assignments,

restrictions, prohibitions, speeches, punishments Rough

amat.ur kisses, packs o{ Parliaments pinched from her mother, a

pai of high-heeled boots, her hrst jazz recolds, and rambunctious

afternoons at friends' houses... Minors benused bv her smillng

reheatsals md the desperate chiliness of the gilded glass as it met

herlips... Blood stains on her panties, the shame taking root in her

adolescent body..- Falling in love, and the death wish it awakened

C,r\ i ar n n al ,,k

within her... And a quest, always din and melancholic... Life was

elsewhere, it belonged to others: those who were able to seize ir.'Ihe years during whi.h a timorous gnl, with unkempt hair and a

harsh gaze, becane a wonan... Slipping downhill into the world

of peop1e... And now, shc kneu Even if she fled al1 the way to

Amazonia, she would have to take her self with her. Together

withtheweighry noldybaggage of herpast... lf nothingelse, this

much, at least, the trees ofdistant shores had raught her.

She sprinted down the first few hundred meters of cloriaAvenue. ]}is was a place well'a.quainted with darkness, nurder,and destru.tionj it was fu o{ prostitutes, muggers, AIDS-af

flicted robbers armed with needles, garbage dunps, rundomhouses, dark and dank bacbelors'pads, and morels with beds {orrent by the hour. At the top ofthe road whi.h slirhered its way up

to Santa Teresa like a cobra, and whi.h no one dared to use. was

a fish restaurant. It o,lered fine Argentine wines and codfish and

was lit by candlelight only. All of the tables were for two. Ozgitr

had not yet {ound a knigbt to es.ort her thlough the two hug.torches at the door. Besides, by now she found flesh of all kinds

repulsive, andthe thought of sricking her fork into a corpse madc

her stomach churn. Just beyond the restaurant was Rios most

famous sex hotel, otredng all manner of equipment that on.mjght need foy the act ofcopulation, from pianos to saunas, and

porn videos to whips, in rooms rented out for six or twelve hour

sessions. It was at this point, where the Flamengo culf beqan,

that Gloria suddenly tnns{ormed ftom a dirty, dustyweck into ibroad, spacious, tree lined avenue.

'Ihe streets were.omingnow to life. lhe impatient stirings ot

r rropical n;ghr rbou o brFrk o rr of rr", o,oon. . Ozgu, walk,rl

into lhe emelging night, slowl, absorbing a1l the sounds, thrsights, and the srnelis... 'I}le warm, syrupt humid air pless.,lagainst her lips like a wet kiss; the last rats of the waning day

skjpped along the sidewalk. Sttewn along the {rrPet were rotten

mangoes, papaya, bananas, iackfruit, coconut shells, and cassava

roots, which looked like dried branches and which she used to

mistake for firewood. left over from the Gloria street market

thathad ended hoursbefore. Crates, beverages, a few trucks, and

sanba nelodies all around... I}le closer she got to the gu1f, the

more stylish, more light skinned, and more dispassjona& the

people. Here the orderly rows of Pottuguese villas, buge apart

nent buildings surrounded by iron bars, air conditioned shops'

and paln trees slowly beganj the quality of the luncheonettes

gradually increased; in short, Rjo began Putting on its Postcard

.ostume. Two young men weating t shirts bearing the emblem

of theii workpla.e walkedby her. Trey were listening to the game

on a pocket radio turned up fullb)ast "Hey, Minas CheeselCome

hang with us if youre stag," they said to her, blowing a dense

cloud ofbeer jnto her fa.e. ftey were in a good mooditheir team

had won again this weeki the.ompany where theyworked them

selves to death for a bundred dollars a month had in.feased its

narket share; Brazil had won the world cup for the fourth time.

One night when she and Eli wetewalkingto Cinelandia, theyhad

taken refuge beneath this overyass to escape the rain that was

.oming down in buckets. I}Iey had waited, shivering, for nearly

lorty minutes before deciding that they couldn't get any wetter

sin.e theywere already drenched and so began running beneath

the razor-sharp drops. "No matter where I am in the world, 111

always think of Rio when jt rains," OzSur had s:id

Th€ avenuebegan to narlow again after the overpass. I}Ie sea

disappealed just like that, as if made to vanish by a nagi.ian's

wandias a result of Rio s unique topography, the travelerwaiking

rarallel to the shore suddenly found herselfwith her ba.k to the

Jlulf. And it was at this point, where she and the Guanabara Gulf

partedways, thar shewent down to the beach She gazed upon the

City in Crimson Clorl I17

still waters for a long time, like a rider on horseback standing at

the beginning ofavast d€sert. On€ ofthe countiess Ozsiifs inside

ofherwas stili in love with the ocean, the sunset, adventure.

Fat fron any human activinl, the o.ean wds calm and austere,

with*awn into its own walld, last deep in thaught. It was as if the

Guanabaru Gulfwere the daot to eternitt, with the sky sa expansitre,

its beauty beyond wa s, as it strctched from the hotizan into infrnity.

Sundo\nn...The hour when life, ina afits magnificence and all ofitsmisery, was cast in afterElow... ln the tropics, an endinq was nevet

expenenced as a canclusion, never awakened feelinTs af sadness. ttwas marc like the llrst notes played by an ecstati. synphany; it made a

worn aut, aibpidated, exhausted tuean brand new, creatingit all ovel

again. A daintr net of light had been cast aver the sky, like the gauze

curtain of a temple; the clouds flashed, glinnetin| in Eald and purple.

A giganti. dalk bitd catrying the night in its swdddlihg clothes slawly

spread its frte-tipped wing' A ealm, pute, clea\ immattal sky. ..

She turned around. She looked at the Blue Hi fawla, e tinyfteckle in the jungle shrouded in red mist, and at the iron Jesus

trying to enbrace the city with his puny arms.It was time she gor

back home, before night, making its sudden descent, tookherbysurprise once again.

A bum, his face covered in pockmarks, walked by her, talkinsto himself and hurling guffaws and exptetives left and ight. He

was pushing a cart ful of at least twenty dogs all tied up withIaundry Line. She ran into the man almost every Sunday. She pitied the dogs. Some of them barked with all their mighr, hoping

to piercethe thick-skinned hearts of the people of Rio, while oth-

ers howled and howled with the same fi€rce exuberance of theirwolf ancestors. Most, however, passivelybowed to their{ate, just

like the street people whose protein needs they met. She fixed

her eyes upon a panicllar spot aDd stared, counting to twenty,

an effective method she had deveioped to keep her from puking,

or crfng. B€fore she even realized it, she had begun praying.

Everything she encountered was teling her that death made all

dreams come true in this city;that here, death had found its very

own nook ofpandise.

She slowed down when shegot to the catete Poli.e station and

quickly scoped out the area, her eyes moving at the speed of light,

like those of a mastey thief. She once spent eight hours in that

dirty pink wooden vila with its unkempt front yard overrun by

weeds. hey'd left her sittjng there under the sun, hungry, thirsty,

and without cigarettes; they? held a gun to her head; they d told

her how they were going to break her Engers using something

like a ping-pong ra.k€t. It was at the time when shed just begun

working at the So.iety for Protecting Stre€t Children. While

waiting at thebus stop, shedheard someone cry out, "lhat's herl

that's her! ' A car had then come to a sudden halt right next to her

and three civil police had leapt out, grabbed her by her legs and

arms, and brought her to this spot. It was only hours later that

she Enallyund€rstoodthat all ofithadbeen fol the s.ke of wdng'

ing a thousand dollars out o{her. But Ozgiir hadn't given in.In acountry where concepts like justice, tdal by law, anddefense were

considerednothingbut encunbnnces, she had not been deterred

by those police, whose language she hardly understoodi she had

managed to get out of that sewage pit scot-fuee, without paying

a cent she didn't have anymoney any\'vay-for her tueedom, or

her 6ngers.lhe odd thing about it was that she felt no resentment

lowards the tolturers, or that cotton candy sweet building (all

police stations and barracks in Rio were painted in tones ofpink).

Every time she walked by it, she scanned the wjndows with an

irEtional longing, tried to ligure out jn which room she hadbeen

questioned, and felt a perve/se desire to run into "her" policemen.

a ir\ in Crirnson al.xl

For some reason, she wondered ifthey would recognize her. After

all, the Catete Police Station was one o{ very few buildings that

held a nenory for her in thls foreign city.

l]le most vivid recollection she hadwas that ofher companion

in misfortune while in custody. Hed been locked onto a balcony

the size ofa bathtub, located directly beneath the noon sun. He d

.louched down on the si,zling stones, rolled up in a ball to protect\i. rd,4lrom h"rdv. lrwa,al.rgihebe oreOzp-rhnal vno

ticed the courtyard, whi.h was partitioned into .ages like a zoo,

or the fat mulatto with the handlebar noustache there in his un'd"rwea' ftre idn h.d rd;-o hr. ne.d and w-, lookrng ar Ozgur.

like an o1d sailor garing upon the sto.my seas, never averting his

glance, not for even a se.ond... He was asklng a profound, pain

frl qu."r. rnFnrr" q p.ror o' uaknowrble mpdr'nC. Ozgu" wrs

wtapped up in heroM predicament. Shejust stoodthere staring

back at him. She looked at hih with a 6xed gaze reflecting noth

ing but her own emptiness, containing not a hint of cornpassion,

atta.hnent, any kind of message... Each ofthen had gotten lost

in the depths of their om pain, th.re in the eyes of the other,

until fte police took the ,aadiro in for questioning naybe for

torture, maybe to his death.

The prc.ess of desttu.tian had begun, like everyrhine ih Lhis clty, at u

di2zying speed: before she knew it, she had arnved at the point of no

rcturn. me wild seeds af doon had suddenly taken root in her soul.

Owt the .oming mohths they ilould gerninate, furtirely, ond, feeding

on the hapelessness a(unulating ih hel heaft drop hy tuap, wdx falthLike trees that grow in the dark.

She had nade it thlough her third week in Rio. (Only thtee weeks!)

She had akeady fallen fat the seductive call of Hades and made her firsr

favela jautney, enrotted in an African dance eowse, learned the bus

numbers, .igarctte brands, ahd the simple prcsent tense in Pottugues.,

.one eye to eye uith the Atlantic A.ean, discovered Q\eljo Minas,

that distant rclative of Turklsh white cheese, ahd papaya juice, akd

gone to a do2en t'estas and net dozens af peaple She d even fallen in

Iore an1 been dumped already. Her left index finset had been brcken

tuhen it got stuck ih ah eleratar doot. A dentist on the strcet whete she

lived had been hit with a rain of bullets because he refused to hand

She was broke in those days, too, but she neveftheless continued

to ftitter her dollarc away with the expe.tation of the salary she

would secure on the day she finally managed to conquet the anerous

bureaucracy of Brazil. She and het anly friend, Debanh, went to jazz

dubs, Ipanema bars playing hassa"nova, and Japanese rcstaurcnts

almost every nlght. Debotuh snubbed anything less than foft stars

'Ihey wotked at the sane universlty, but it seemed that nothing in this

world interested this nearly farty yeaLold waman less than aademia

lt was in the rcaln af her wrious pleasures that h.t brilliance shined:

Japanese .uisine, the sea, the sun, sdmba, etutt adventures,love

(Ah, lovel) And she was alsa obsessed vith astrclogy Though neatly

shoft enough ta be considered a dwarf, she was a breathtakingly beau

tiful woman, wlth an hour elass fiCure remlniseent af the Hollywood

stars of bygone eras, rcd hai eas.ading down her ba.k, a tiny but eret

so regal nose, and seablue eyes thdt shane like wet pebbles In the fuIl

sense aftheword bteathtdking She had bercme a 'eitable

virtuasa

.f sedu.tion. She whet her attractil)eness on a daily basis through a

ftgulat series of exer.ises, tests, and fatmidable challenges Purting,

alddbsame, viriaus; a .atwonan who was a maenet fot desile

She was across from the former President's Palace, which had

been .onverted into a Cultural Centet. (On the mo/ning of the

hilitary coup, the lhen'President of Brazil committed suicide,

with a single bullet to the head, on this very spot.) She was at

a pizzeia thar was a cut above Ihe New Wotld nrere were no

crtv rn cr iDrson Clorl

stains on the red Formjca tablesithe waiters were nol onlypolite

but nimble, roor hollow, oily pastries hadbeen replacedby pizzas

bearinglren.h names. l}erewere at least forty differeni kinds of

fruit juicc written on the board that.overed the wall from top to

bottom. Tropical fruits, erorbita.tly priced ifrported fruits like

pesches and sfuawberries, Amazonian fruitswith names reminis

cent of those of shughtered lndjan.hiefs: Taharinda, Cupuachu,

Genipapd. Because the people of Rio never deviaied from the

: u.. nol od, px "p lot d teA "bp , .rr"us rur.ign"r lrke OzTur

ever tried the latter drinks It was at just such a pizza joint that

shehadnet Daten The Engllshman was trying to ordera mush

.oon piz,a using exaggeratedarm andleg movements and, with

out realizing it, shouting, whcn he tumed to the Turkishwoman,

who had just sweated blood trying to explain that she wanted a

nate drink rather tban cola, for help. He had nistaken her for rBrazilian, what with her.urly hair, short stature, and halfa dozen

words ofPortuguese... Darren was in Rio to male a documentary

rlr"L,o',tl"murdpr ng ol.tr""t , rld "n.H"w'of the age of communication, dedicatjDgbis life to his work, thal

is, to the weepy eyed voyeurism ofthe First World. Armedwith i.amera in one hand, di.tionaries in the other, and a back pockct

full of malaria pills and.ondons, havlng had all his shots for ev

crytling tuom t'?hoid to yellow fever, he was constantly risking

hr neck on peritous journeys, dashing about &om Nicaragua 1o

Bosnia, from the desetts ofAfrica to the slums of Brazil.

Ozgiir knew well and good within three weeks tim€ that sh.

would never be able to nake it on hey own in the maelstroms ,n

Rio. Shewas hopinganewlove affairwould soothe the fresh pailof having been left high and dry, tbough what sbe mistook for ,r

desire to be consoled was /eally the boxer's anxiety as he soughr

to heng in the malch aftef a walloping clout. Ihe fa.t was, sh,

had already gotten caught up in a.urr.nt much stronger thil

herself, and now she was fated to be dragged along, smashing into

one rocky shore after the next. The two strangers, besieged by

the city's brutality, would inevjtably draw closer, sailing towards

one another with the force of the erotic winds blowing off oftheb€a.hes. But then, befo/e the timid relationship ofthis Old Wotld

pair had a chance to bloom in the steamy climate of the ttopi.s,

Ozgrir would nale another ofher countless mistakes in this (ity;

she would introduce Darren to Deborah. For the born and raised

native ofRio, one nigbt was all it took...

Debonh was going to take the tourists breathless from

dashing around rhe neon signs and Eroticas and pussy Cats of

Copacabana-to Santa Teresa. To a bar where all the customets

sangin unisonand ac.ompanied the musi. with tambourines, ta

bor drums, andmatchboxes, andwherepaiis danced amongst the

.ramped and wobbly tables... ('I}ris was Ozgur's first encounter

with Sobrenatuial, and with Santa Teresa.) Where, later, Deborah

would exhibitherart as i{performingher rendition ofa Paganini

sonata. An impec.able .onposite .,f goddess and sparro4 joyand

tenderness, atta.k and withdrawa1... Sometimes dancing, some

times singing pagodes in a slightly huslcy voice, with movements

poached from Edith Piaf... And then proceeding to twist a nap-

kin and explain the Mobius stip... Probably no one else on this

earth could possibly male theword "Mobius'sound sotitillating.(Ihat's when Darren turned to Ozgiir and said, "Such a beautiful

woman, and so intelligent as welll Unbelievablel" As if seeking

.onfirnation from her thathe had indeed made the right choi.e.

'Ilen he added: 'Hey, you're a mathematjcian too, right?') Ozgnr

desperateiy regretted never having had brains enough to explain

the Mobius strip to a man before; wearing ratty j.ans instead of

: tight, bright r€d dress; not having pier.ed her ears or bought

lipsti.k yet in her lifei not being able to hold hel tongue but in-

stead wding effusive on the matter o{her "amorous adventure."

the truth was that, compared to Deborah's, her Middle East€rn

flirtation hethods were ponderous, clumsy, and ludicrous, like

the war.hariots ofancient history. Next to this beautiful, charm

ing, ski f!1, fast, en.hanting woman, she felt like the Aboninable

Snoman in the Himatayas. She ran down alist ofadjectives that

coutdbe used to descrjbe Deborah: coquettish, enti.ing, flighty...(Mu.h lalel she would use the same adjectives when describing

Rio.) Presenting a flawless image ofthat which she wanted to be:

AWOMAN.

And to rub salt into Ozgur's wound, the couple at the next

table had been kjssjng non stop, except for the occasional drink

and roiletbreak, as ifthey were partaking in some kind ofcouples

.hampionship. And as ifto spite 6zgiif... Like courtjesters using

exaggeration to show reality in its purest form to the king- And a

weepy chorus piece played in the ba.kground, so appropdate to

the melodrama. Hei stohach twisted in a cramp. they ended up

having to carryher to the carand quickly spirit her home.

The sun was abaut to rise as she set her alarm clock fat eight. Even

taking pity upan hetself no longer provided solace. She was alane in

Lhe five rcon nini palace, as the owners had gone to Sao Paolo for

Easter. Like a tiger ik a .age she wandeled abaut amangst the heary

touthes draped in covers, mahosany .offee tables on slendet less, silvet

candlesticks, reliEious paintings doused 1n bload from top to bottom,

Madonna cwios, Spanish swonls, duello pistols, books of absalutely no

ihtercst to her, witten in a language she didn t know baoks an sail

|ng, kalian (uisine, the Blaziliah Constitution, etc. Wheh she euLlno langer stdnd the pdin in her stonath, she would callapse onto thtPercian .arpets and drive her fingernails into the.ou.h.overc to kery

herself [rom s.reamins. As if anyone wou]d hedr her if she did screaml

She was surrounded by arrogant, presumptuous abjects all loakinl

dawn and sneenng at her; ewn the mirrors derided her. An antiqk

.uckao clock sang out every hour, on the hour: 'You idiot, you idiotl

mat pair of daves, D. and the other D., stood dawn in HER stteet

(neither the house nor the cauntry was herc, but she claimed the stteet

as her awn) chatting for dbout falty minutes, twitterinclike parrcts,

their laughtet saating up ta the faurth float, in a contersation that

most likely did not in lude the Mabius strip, before they fina y u,ent

olf to sone unknown destination.

Just as night was settling in, beforc Cleopattu of Rio nade

her grand appearcnce, o2gtu and Darren had agreed to meet on

Copacabana beach at ten the next mornins. She knew he wouldnt

came, but she nevertheless woke up at the crack of dawn and ptepared

to ledre. She was undettaking on.e again that v)hich an unkempt

woman newly arrived ftom a winter countty and who is generally

careless about her appearanee must da beforc putting on a bathinE

srit; that neaninglrss, Strypheak battle against badily hair. She feltexa.tly like the hairc that fell onto the newspapet she d spread out on

the floor: naturul, harmless, and far some reasan, unwanted.

Baster, an Easter when all clacks stopped, had begun thus. Nobody

showed up at Copacabana. Sure, half a tuillion people crammed onto

the four kilometerc af beach with their g-strings, pareos, gaitals,

tabar dtuns, an.l bodies that shined as if they'd been deep f/bd. But

nobody cane fothet...Easter had begun, and all clo.ks had stopped at the behest of the

evil wi that reigned otd the city. The alarm .lack had performed

its final duty at eight o clock, the detisive, talkanle cuckoo birds had

suddenly retircd to thet nests, and the batteries in her wtistv)atch

harl sone dedd. She had not yet leamed where she could buy u,atch

batteries, simple, infinitesima y sma yet vital piece af information

though it was. The temperature had suddehly shot up to forty-two de-

grees. She .ouldn t get the aI conditioning to work. She was all alone

and shut up in a house that wds like a emetery, with a telephone as

sti as a eotpse. Fat endbs days, four abysmal nights... It was as

if she \,)erc alrcady half dead. Silehte mounted a full assaub; when

the .lo.ks stopped, so did time. Llke a bug unable ta break flee of its

cocoon, she was confined to pae within the confines of a sinil e day. A

warn, strky coaon gradud y tunning out af oxyeen... SheA begun

haying asthma attatks.

Sonetimes she would reath the verge of insaniry and throw herself

out onto the broiLing streets so that she .ould .ontinue beliering in

the redLity of the outside world. She d walk up and doh,n Copacabana

Arenue, the only street in the city that she was familiat with. Like

Rudolf Hess ds the last rcmaining prisaner pa(ing back and forth in

the .ourrydrd af his ptlsan. The heat rapidly devoured all of her energy.

She couldn't read, or eat, or breathe. She feb her lungs were filled with

warn phlegm. hery item of .lathing she tried an was too heary. Her

lips were ua.ked from thitst, het urine tuas the colat af nud. Blue

lightnnllt constantly struek befale her lustetless eyes. All clocks had

stapped and she was losing het mind; time went by so S-L O W L v,

so vry S L A W L v. It spiraled and eddied and meandeted, splitting

and forking at dekas. Inde.isire, foreetful ninutes collapsing noisily

an top of one anothet. .. Grcins of sand drcppins one by ane. .. From life

La dea&, from oder ta .haos, laom life...

She run inta the mulatto woman of Capd.abana on Haly Sunday.

'Iheir paths .ross.d at Paint Zera. On that day, Jesus had conpleted

his jautney thraugh the Land of the Dead and had decided to .one

baek to Earth. Ol a likehess of him, dt least. ..

Shed left h{ apaftment be.ause af the piercing hunger that

wracked her stonath. The only re.ent heartening derclopment was

her dis@,ery of a Lebanese restaurant. She was fantasizing about

the white chcesc stuffed pita and eegplant salad she wauld eat in the

kiask restaurant consisting of faw at five tables rcndanly s.attered in

front af a eounter. me sale fantasy het paralyzed imdgination was ca-

pable af plodu(ihg. .. But she just .ouldn t seem to frnd the restaurant.

She had reeorded jn her memory that it was la.ated.lase to one of the

bus stops: haweret, with .hatu.teristi. carelessness, she had neglected

to take nate of the name af the stop. She vlalked around and around,

neatly .rawling, on the wr|e of passihg out ftom hunger and heat.

Then suddenly, on maybe her faufth tlip in flant of the same stop,

she sa|9 the mulatto waman. She was sitting with her bdck against ah

electlic pole, her legs spread heedlessly in frant af he/, into the street

wherc a canstant stteam of whicles sped by. She was sleeping. She

was barefoot and wore a dress that was so fikhy its color was indistin

guishable. Patches of grayish skin showed through her sholn head. She

reglsteled no rcaction, even ds the buses lapped at the sales of het feet,

and the exhaust puffed at het face. what a deep slumbet!

6zgnr stuWed a few steps away ftan he/. merc was something

odd about the woman, or rathel about the woman s .olor. Her face was

a ditty yellow, what might be des(ibed as the @lar of beaswax: it was

a lery strange, ,ery odd .olor belonging to no race. Due to hunge.

probably," tuas 6zgiit's onginal though| Then all af a sudden, Ozgar

awoke, roused by the devil. Lightning that, ruther than illuminating

her mind, ln.ineruted it..- The wonan was deadl She approached the

waman with timid steps, ready to cut and tun at any moment, trying

ta stifle her hotaL She saw the deep wound, which looked like a hole

dri ed light into the point where her neck and skull net, and the dried

blaarl covetinsher ba.k The wonan had been k lled! She looked around

ik despetution, wdnting to ask for help. Cars, notorcy(les, buses; they

a .attied indiffetent peaple eamingba& from Easter service, ot lang,

drawn out medls, at the bea.h. Evetyane was in thei/ own little uo/ldl

everyone had pulled down their blinds. me waman attlacted less inter-

est thah an empty sack tassed 1n a carneL As if she wete a horrendous,

dlrty yellow stain on the shiny, unblenished surfa.e of life. A phlegny

gob of spit on the face of humanity!

wha could she passibly ask fot help? She didn't even kno|9 the few

measly sentences of Partusuese needed to ask sameone for the addrcss of

the nearest police statian. She was standing face ta face with d fturAer

l.16 trLJ 'n.r n,. n Cl,iJl

ui.tim on the busiest strcet in the city in brcad daylight and she didn t

knaw whdt to da. She didn t eren know whete watch batteries werc

sold in this danned .ity! "Let the dead buty the deadl

Shattered, erunbled, graund ta a pulp, doser to a stdte of nothinE

ness thdn shehad ewrbeen, shewat/ nnin. ba& to her sole tefuge

her five roon mini palace. Suddenly thele it was, right in front of

her,like an oasis in the desett: the Lebanese restauraht Withaut a

second thought, she walked in She ordercd a spina.h'filled pasttv'

eggplant salad, and a white .heese stuffed pita And an ice'cold

papaya juiee... she felt nathing, absolutely nathing; onlv a vague,

insidiaus trembling had settled anta her lips When she stabbed the

spinach pastty with her fark, a gteasy, sliny tlump of spinach fiew

out of it. And at the moment, she thought she would 'omt Anlv at

Newrtheless, desplte het harrible feeling of queasiness, she ate

every last bit of hel meal. The queasiness wauldn t cease fot weeks;

it wautd .ontinue for months, years h v)ould descend upon Rio like a

dirty ye ow cloud. A sreasy, timy doud afferins no ehan.e of eseape

The process of destruetian had begun.

Now she, too, knew what ewry percon who had arrined at Point

zero knew: All af the corpses that a person eh.ounters hit her in ane

spat, het weakest: The .orpse within

She took a deep breath and laid her pen down on the table Her

eyeswere stil on the greennotebook, stil stuckon her own past

Shehadfinished hernovet. there was nothjngleft that shewanted

to tetl the world. shea descrjbedher hell down to the vervlast de

tail. Shed reachedthe last station in the lablrinth of realitv where

all roads led to the same blind spot She d been tortured, and felt

as ifshe had shriveled to hal{ her sizej but at the same time' sh.

felt as if shed grown. She had exited the plocess of desttuctioni

she had captured it for eternity within strict .onnnes' like a bug

bLrried alive in amber. She had transformed it into an object that

she coutd gaze upon in amazement whenevershe pleased

Noticing that an eerie silence had suddenly descended upon

the restaurant, she raised her head. She was perplexed She

couldnt tell which of the two universes in which she found her

selfwas more real.All of the cusromers had grown deathly silent,

and were staring at the nearly two meters h1l, fear inspiring,

burly man at the entran.e, like an otchestra fo.used upon the

condu.ror's wand. He was welL kept, but his clothes looked like

theybelonged to someone else. He had a lopsided cap on his head

thrce of four sizes too small, and held a huge sra.k of paper' His

gaze slid over the obje.ts ofhis focus like butter' "It's like theres

a well in lhe .enter of his eyes,' Ozgrir thought to herself 'As

if he's iust fiDished reading the Book of th. Dead, and jusr fully

urd"r ,ood rr' rer. ing. "l "rArl"odeOlr!.rd.fte giant cerefully looked at every single person in the room

one by one, like a sultan scrutinizing his harem, before deciding

upon Ozgrir. He spat a few words at her out of the .omer of his

mouth. A walloping curse or threat... He walked up to her, his

awkward movements secminSly beyond his mental control, nore

like a gorilla than a man. Bumping into this and that, letting pa

per fa right and left... He stopped in front of OzgnY's iable, like

a dark, black nountain.

"So you don't wanl to talk to me, huh?"

She quickly cranmed her notebook into her putse She had

io win some time, to give the madman an answer that would get

him out of her hair. Somehow e1l the lunatics ended up at hel

doorstepl Should she say that she doesnt speak Portuguese?

Its nevef wise to make it obvious that you're a foreigner in Rio

Unable to de.ide wbat to do next, she laised her eyes and looked

up at the maD, simply letting events take their course Just like

thar, the man atla.ked. Not Ozgrir, but the table right next to

Ciry in Crin\on Cl.rk

her, where a young man in worker's ovevalls sat by himsel{... He

snatched the last slice of pizza from the toung man's plate. He

bit into it voraciously, angiily, vengefully. It was as if he sought

to remind the world, which had tormented him so much, for so

long, ofits place; to prove that, despite a1l ofits {at, its sauce, its

fancy French names, he would rip humanity to shreds between

his canines, at any momenthe pleased... Hed dora'ned halfa slice

in a single bite. He gdmaced with ie!rulsion. Even more agile and

turious than before, in a single, gnndiose motion he flung the

rcnaining pizza back onto the plate. You could hear a pin drop;

€veryone, including the waiters, stood as if hpnotized. With the

same swift, mechanical steps,like ajack in the box leaping offitssprings, he walked to the counter, grabbed theketchup and nearly

emptied out the entire bottle. Ard then he gdped down that poor

last hal{ slice, which now looked like a cormonnt droming in a

sea ofblood, and dashed out. He disappeared as fast as he had ap

peared, leaving behind r€ams of Methodist church bulletins, and

the dark shadow ofhis anger...

Deathly silence .ontinued to reign in the restaurant for some

time, as ifthere was nothing le{t to say. Ozgur was watching the

young man who djust had his last piece of pizza stolen. He was a

little shocked, and a little hurt. Like all victims, he asked, 'Why

ne?" He resented being watched, andby a woman to boot, while

in su.h apitiable state; he turned his eyes towards the street and

put a smile on his tace. As the litde shop ofhorrors slowly livened

back up; as the jokes and commentary and teasing commenced

once againi as the customers went back to scarfing down thejr

mushroom pizzas, gulping down their tapbeels, and engagingin

small talk; and as life returned to its familiar, common, safe state,

lilre a bran.h springing back after itt been stretched as far as itcan go; with what seemed like an almost supernatural willpower

he continued to keep that smil€ tight on his lips. 'Across between

the Mona tisd and the catl^ Alice in Wonaethnd," thought Ozgrr.

She ordered a papaya jui.e and wrote her final sentenc€s in the

The equation fot chaos ts really rcry simple. Life = Iife. Death = death.

Nevertheless each of us seeks ta fotm aw own equation and make the

world equivalent to it. What vahity!

Thetels nothingin the realwarld deep enaughto cantaih urhat's

inside af you; but you, too, with yaut life, yaw death, and all ofyour dreans, ate na lareet than a hollow dot in the awful eternity

It was dark when she went outside. Another Sunday night in the

tropics hadbegun. Rio de Janeiro was perhaps the only cityin the

world not to have fallen prey to the melancholy of Sundays. 'I}le

Carir.ds couldn't srand loneliness, silence, or sadness, not for a

se.ond. But sti1l, but still .. Sunday nights were always terrlfyine

ln a littie while the streets would fi]I up with people feeling

brandnewafteracoldshower, wearjngfreshnake up, invigorated

by nocturnal hopes. A mad rush for the Domingreilds, clubs, bars,

restaurants, andbeach con.erts was about to get unde/way. From

amongst the infinite available choices, everyone would choose a

nook, a rhythrnjust right for themselves. Sanla, axi,bossa-nora,

tango, jazz... the flat broke would park their chaise longues infront of the luncheonetres and turn their boom boxes up tulI

blast. You.ould dan.e in any doorwat make love in any secluded

comer. Even the street people could 6nd a nelody to hold on to.

In the velvetynight, death would dissolve, tike a handful o{pow-

der paint thrown into water and imprint its invisible signature

on the nisht. Letters of lLrst that would be sent, naked, withoutenvelopes of love. Ile peopie of the city would hoard everything

Cny io Crinson Cloak

they could get their hands on to 6[ the time until dawn. 'ftey

would build a massive stack of crates of beer, botrl€s of cachaca,

reahs of soDgs, and lov€rs of various shades and tones, to defend

themselves against the onslaught of loneliaess. Ozgia had be€n

hoarding for months, too. She had bought pack after pack of ciga-

rettes, lin€d up her pens, put her memories in ordei, and placed

them on a conveyor belt to transform them into sentences. For

morths she had grasp€d tighdy onto her pen, iust like an acrobat

walking t}l€ tightrope holds onto his balancing cane. Ev€ry night,

without exception, she had sharpened her imagination witl the

determination of a knight gkding his weapons; placing letter on

top of letter sentenc€ on top of s€ntence, pain on top of pain,

until, frnally, she had built a fortress. A fortr€ss whos€ secret

weapon would be revealed at the 6rst cyclone of reality...

THE STRBBTS OF NIO

me black velvet glove was slowly closing in on the ruby that spa*1ed

oh the horizon. The topi.al night, capable of penetating even a dia-

mond... Like a wet tongue it lieks the body, seeps thrcueh a\l the oaekt

and into the tissue; and therc, deep down inside, it finds its rhythm.

Thenight, t efteruting in each pulsation...

me taveleru'ould get caught up in the ca of the streets, in its

exquisite and unbearuble lishtness... She would bth on b one of the

caral'ans en rcute to the land of the night. To lose herself in a sound,

to find herself in a ftenzy, to taste the most poisonous of passions. Ihe

sound of dflms fton afa4 ron-tons, atabaqu€s, marimbas, pan-

denos... She would artive at the giant bonfrle in the immense desett

of loneliness. She, too, would join the .rowds that danced hysteicany.

DivorceA ftom her chdins, ecstatic, cutsed with plasure . mose dane'

ingdesperately, so thattheir combined fitesnighti u inatethenight

sununding them, and the night within then... To the same rhythn,

in the same desert, on the same night... Those descending into the

depths of nothingness, in step, hand'in'hand, shoulder to shouder. .

'Ihe Great Se.ret was thefe, ngtu there at that blind spot: Life k a

dream seen between two blinks af the eye. A *ean, that's a11...

"screams. drums. dan e, dance, dane, danee!"

A TRAVBLER IN_ NIGHT

ANDTHE FIREWORKS EXPLODB!

Each percon's destiny is Perconal

anly insafat as it resenbles that which exists in his nemory

-Eduardo Malea

She was on the broad square between the former Presidential

palace and the datk alleys leading up to the Blue Hlll favela T'}]'e

evening breeze blowing in from the oc€an hadloosened th€ iton

cola/ around her throat. the last spectactes of the dav were gradu

aly beins erased beneath the city lights and quietlv retiring from

the streets to make way for the night Peddle$ selling semi pre-

cious stones, zodiac necklaces, toucan, hummingbird, and parrot

figurines, and secondhandbooks were gathering up tleir stands;

kiosk workers were filting up their coffee pots and roling out kegs

of beer for the thirsty travelers jouvnelng through a vast dark'

ness: streetchildren were devoulins the last wafers and candy on

their display trays and, holding tightly onto theit meag€r earn-

ings, heading off in search of their mothers for dinn€r' Buses

coming back flom the beaches were pack€d flll of salt'scented

travelers with wet hai/. Tleir bodies nade languorous bv aI of

the Eys they absorbed, they had lain about like emptv sacks, with

sandy sandals, towels, and paleos strewn around them A dapper

crowd in {ront of the Cultural Center was waiting to entet the

cinema {or the 7:30 p.m. showing, with candy popcom, cola' and

cashews in hand. ozgLir glanced over the poste6. the cinema in

the city centey was the only Place to watch decent movies And

showing that day: Bram Stoket's Dtucula.

A boy of around fifteen or sixteen strutted bv in what could

only be described as a wat dan.e. His haii cut to the latest fash

ion, iike a rooster's ciest, a pale orange t shirt with a 6sh design

Citr_ ii Crimnrn Cloak

on it, American tennis shoes, and shortswith an emblem reading.Child of tuo"... Everything about the guy just screamed, "l'n a

fa1'elada , t'm rond of cocaine and cola. one of these days I'm soinsto b€ one heluva gunsiinger"..- A melody ran through her head.

" Ele eru um bandita ..;' The words pierced her heart once again; just

like when shed heard them sung by the throaty vojced man in

Santa Teresa that afternoon. Her eyes welled up with tears. ]t was

as if in a single, acute thrust, all of the pain, the disappointment,

a of the blows she d been dealt in the past had be.ome lodged in

a tiny spot ofher heart, no larger than the eye of a needle. Shed

had enough; enough of clingins to life, of defending herself, of

taking slap after slap to the face...

"He was a bandit, but he was a good guy." lhose dread{ul

Sunday night migntions... Iley were long, excruciatingly long,

a thick r€sidue, a clotted darkness... Clasping herpen, she wrote,

for writing was the only thing that made the night bearable. For

just as a soldier is acutely familiar with fear, and an acrobat is

intimately acquainted with her body, so, too, is the vagabond's

knowledge of loneliness profound. Espe.ially a traveler in the

streets of tuolA harborless voyager in the tropics... "What busi

ness do you have over there in that city anway?" her mother

had asked, in a concerned, winter scented voice of the rorthetnhemisphere. Wby baven't you come back yet?

Her fingers went to the bulge in her purse, to the notebook,

its faint pulsations ftom beneath the worn leather revealing itto be alive. Even i{ I have wasted two long years, at least I've

writt€n a book. It may not be of use to anyone, or save any-

one from anything. 'ftey re just phenomena that I've selected

to replace reality, lies that lick ny wounds... A few glimmering

twitches in an ocean ofdarkness. Tremulous, plain, enchanted...

I wrote, because I couldfnd no other cover, Do otherprotection

against death in this city which puts a value on human life often

to four hundred dollars per head Now I am alone with my own

hunchbacked child. but I'm even lonelier than before."

Eli suddenly appeared at the doo! to the pizzeria that was

the birthplace o{ Point Zero, like Lazarus dsing {iom the dead

H€ was going to the Cultural Center, his posture rigid iike that

of an Indian warriot, his stdde unmistakabty singular' When

he walked. it was as i{ he danc€d to a magnificent rhvthm that

only he.outd heat... As if life were a capoeird dancer wielding his

knife, but Eli had long ago learned how to protect himseu from

the attacks o{ his extremely agile, cunning, mastertul rival. In

the blink o{ an eye ozsur dashed into an a[ey and disappealed

into the night, iust seconds be{ore they would have come face

Eti was the sole photograph of Brazil that cursed, riddled

mass of a country not splattered with blood. the sole name

that kept her from striking a vitriolic X over an intetminable

list. Yet he was the veritable otrsPring of violence He $'as born

in the Africa of South Amenca, the former slave Port, seven

gated Salvadot. "I don't remember my moth€t; she died before

I'd even started crawling. And she probably has no Yecollection

of my father," hed exptained, punctuating the ends of his sen-

tences with the acrid, wry, touching smile he used in li€u ofpe

dods. "I was five the first time I was raped. When they rescued

me from the clutches of ny Lrncle and four of his friends, thev

hadto give me stitches to keep ne {rorn bleeding to death. Even

on my mouth... Ilat dat's been erased from mv memory, but

I still remembe/ my uncle. Like they say, you know, vou 'arvyour 6rst love with you for the rest of your life " His starkest

rnenories of his childhood, a childhood which he describes as

"a coai black stone that's stil stuck in my throat,'are the nights

he spent in a wretch€d orphanage trying to 6ght off sleep. A

broken bottom dog, he was beat€nwith iton rods evervmorning

Ciry in Crimson cloak

until the age of fourteen because he wet his bed. fte hunger thatwas englaved sonewhere even deepel than his memory, into his

very body; the rapes, ofwhich he became the perpetratoronce his

mus.les were sufficiently developed; warm, ocean scented rains

siipping in through the broken windows of the dormitoryj thewindbearing fogwhistles, the chiming ofbells, the be.koning call

of distant shores... He became acquainted with the opposite sex

at the age of €ighteenj he had studied it like a European biolo,

gist studies Anazonian monkeys, but in it he failed to 6nd any

trace ofhis world. After so many Brazilian women, who were as

clingy as stinging nettles and saw this black'skinned Hercules

honosexuality as a hordble waste, or even worse, as an insult,th€ introvelted, &ait Ozgnr, that g/inga from distant shores, was

Iheyhadmet in the African Danc€ course in Flamengo. When

she 6rst set foot in the dan.e studio, she had progressed on

wobbly knees before the gaze of the troupe, all of then profes-

sional dancers and all of then b1a.k, and all of them gay-astheir gaze turned her blood to vapor. (And theyyelled out thingslike: Another whitey who \rants to dance like the black folk!"..."First she's gotta get fucked by a nigger, manl" . "Ouch, stopl'nrat hurtsl') She'd taLen r€fuge behind the only person who

smiled at her. And that's how she learned jazz dance, Afri.antitoals, Candonbla... And that sole secret of the bodt to whi.honly the black continent is priry: rhythm... Keeping her eyes

riveted upon Eli's mus.ularback, imitatinghis incledibly elastic

movements, simulating his dance, whjch gave each and every

beat of the drum its due. . . Ihey were the most intriguing pair inthe.lass. Acoalblack Candonlli dan.erwith thebody ofa creekgod, and the skeleton like, ivory white ballerina. Ihe harmony

that developed between them over time was nothing less than

extraordinary. Even the haughty troupe had begun to rreat her

decently, despite her thlee deadly sins ofbeing white, awoman'

and a grtrga. "Ihere s only one way to dance in Candonbl6:' Eli

had explained. 'No inhibitions; you can't hold back; vou can't

hide anything. You have to dance like you're going to die, not

tomorrow, and not in fottyyears, but rightnow-as soon as the

She had.lung to Eli, exhilarated at final1y having found some

one to whom she could direct her love without danger. And Eli had

clungback... theils was a relationship free o{ any kind ofdemand'

tyranny, orbargaining. lt bore the kind ofspontaneity se€n onlv

in {riendships between children. Full of pu/ity and innocence,

characteristi.s that were so agonizingly absent in Rio . Actually,

Ozgiir didn't believe mucb in lofty words like "innocence." And she

couldn't explain what purity meant eithet he love she {elt for Eli

was definitely not non sexual. To the .ontrary, she desired hinso ardentlt he made het quiver like a leaf caught in a storm But

still... But still, when she lay down on Eli's twin bed and rested her

head on his chest, sh€ felt that she was finaly there, in her lost

paradise, though she did not believe in the exist€nce o{it, and sh€

h:d no idea what it ra,as like.

Eli had seduced the dashing, lenowned director, sergio

Mancini. with the Broadway experienc€j fitst, he had acquiesced

to the whims ofthe sixty something h€donistic manandtook on

the leading role in his sado-masochistic fantasies And thus he

managed to snatch the lole o{ Romeo in the 'Musical of the Year'"

Ozgur now followed his dizzyjng ascent in ihe entertainment

world via the newspapet onll l}e combined forces of tbe gtizzled

wolf's jealousy and Eli's saviry foi survival, a trait he acquired

at the tender age of 6ve, immediately pushed Ozgiir out of the

Juninho night, the pagan celebration, when a series of bal

loons fr,rll of candles and lanterns explodes in the sky one after

the other... Shed wajted at that awfirl pub in Cinelandia until thelastbus to Santa Teresa. She d thrown DaProfundis into the trash

and she'd run into Roberto. 'Youjust can'tquit chasiDg after thatthing you fear the most, can you?" Roberto had said to her.

She hadn t caUed Eli again. She had writren hih, inscribed

him onto the page. At the time, she likened her pain ro that of a

mother who's lost her son. But then she d never had a chlld ofhetown. fte onlythingshe had comparable lo maternallovewas her

feelings towards Tfie CiO, ih Crimsan Cloak. tslr now she missed

the Eli that she had witten about in her nove1, even more than

she missed the real Eli. Dear Elil Eli, who danced as ifhe would die

when the musi. stopped, as if he had already died many dearhs,

but who leaned to survive at the age of fivet tana sabdkhtani?

A street lamp at the beginning of the patb up to the fa,elacane on early, illuminating rhe man in the leathe/ jacket who<'ood rhprp likF l pranrr" .r-ruF. Thpi e!psmpr.Hplootedo18urover from her forehead down to her heels, with a gaze that slid

down her like slimy snails. As if she wete a tin, foll,snellingbug standingbefore hin. His face, blackened wjth the soot ofaninternal flame, was as bereft of llfe as that of a zombie. Warning

lights went otrin Ozgnr's brain. She had never seen such empti-ness, such a void of meaning. "Ilis man must not have a soul at

aI. A murderer... A murdererwho kills, not for money orpleasute,

but as a form of existence, a way of expressing himself. It's like

he's jumped right out of the pages of fte CiO, i, Cnr,san Cloak;'

She relded wher she realized that the man wasn t palng any

attentionto herj he was watching the trucks climbing up the Blue

Hil. He was probably a policeman, most likely a .ivil poli.eman

from the Catete Poli.e Headquart€rs.

FIREWORKSI Ozgur was caught in the mlddle ofa bombard-

ment, and stood lrozen on the sidewalk whi.h shook with ea.h

terrifying explosion. She had forgotten where she was, where she

was going, who she was even stark blue, phosphorescent flames

suffused her consciousness ln a flash the fireworks surging tuom

the Blue Hill fdrela had fiUed the dark skv with colortul comets,

gushing springs o{ sparks, totus nowers ablaze, and sparkling

stones that poured down like burstjng rosarv beads. thev were

soaringtowards the zenith of the endlessvoid, andplunginginto

the deepest depths of the night, heading fuI speed into their

demise, leaving twinkling traces of themselves behind Straight

to that moment when a powder fi1led rocket gives bilth to a

fantasticaly beautiful universe, tutns pumpkins into cariag€s

and kilers into angels, creates a land of fairvtales out of a citv

in .rimson .loak... To the miracle where the music o{ the Black

Orpheus drowns out all of the moans, wails, 'des

o{ the earth

At that very moment, Ozgnr saw an imaginarv mask shiniDg in

the nothingness, breathing

By the time the .ocaine-laden trucks reached the top of the

Blue Hil1, she had arrived at a wholty unexpected' traumati' il

lumination. the fireworks had drawn a portrait of the darkness

with the quivenng, magical traces of their demise, but at the

same time theyhad cataPulted Ozgiir into the past. Likeascream

that both beckons the night and rips it to shreds Ozgtir had

understood that she was in love with Rio de Janeiro, whete the

word tove pedshes befote it is even sPoken And that h€r fate had

been inrer twir"d wirh rhi" crry of clrrs Fver sin( e sn4 6t\t sew

that boisteiously colored freak of a postcatd ]}le citv of cliffs,

caycasses, and eagles... Rio was razor'sharp Eindropsi the Santa

Teresabuswith all the drunkards and muggers singingin chorus;

the maddening cacophony of the carnivat drums It was that

melancholy voic€ of the black nan which had swept he/ otr her

feet {rom the very 6rst day, and kind-hearted banditsi Eduardo:

gifts; the mango trees of the ballet s.hool rith monkevs leaping

from th€irbranchesi shelis tintinnabulatins to the bleeze coming

Cirt Crinson Cloat

in from the valley... Eli's smile on that 6rst day, a smile whichwould neverbe erased... the cuanabaia cuti hiding rhe terdfyinglaughter of the ocean... fte jungle, forever lunging forth in itsintermimble thirst for light, whi.h had woven irs branches in a

6rm embrace ofherheart... She had loved the dangerous, he ish,

melancholy tropics.

It was a love that existed {or her alone; destitute, wounded,

unconscious,so nearto insaniry ladenwithrevulsion andhate-alove fated to seek outits oMannihilation. Like aflowerfadingira shop window, poisoned before it could reach anyone, sullied inthe most human way possible.

D€ath had confronted her at every corne4 a fat, gluttonous,fickle death had infiltrated every word she wrote. yet it was some,thing else that she had tried ro capture in those dark labyrinths.Wtat she had sought in the veiled gazes of street people, behindthe carnival masks, in the niserable /a'elas... fte bodyt desper

ate desire for life, olderand stronger than words... That was whathad conftonted her evely dat every moment, pacing up and

down on the st/e€ts like a sleepwalker... the rhythm beatjng atthe heart ofthe city in crimson cloak, ctimbing up from thebtazing sidewalks and wriggling its way into the body, was the rhythincreated on the dirt floors of huts by siaves who had bowed downto the whip for centudes. It was the Black Oryheus who, whennight fell and his body belonged to hin alone, began to sing hismelancholy tune. She had heard his melodies, had sensed themvaguein had carded them within her; but she had failed to put

She had wrjtten me City in Crimson Cloaft, and won herpersonal vi.toryagainst death. Her trivial, insolent, clumsy, de-ceptive victory... Like a god seeing his likeness in the imperfectuniverse of his own creation, ir was oniy now that she inallyunderstood. She had never been abie to love 1lfe, to lovejust for

the sake of life And she hadnever come to terms with it;brit in

the end, when she op€ned her eves at Point Zero' she was able

The street. with its mass of sacks and boxes and trash 'ans'

was a .ar cemetery Cars stripped of their moto/s' headlights'

and tires had been tolled onto the sidewalks like so manv tor

ture victims Ch€vrolets and Dodges {rom the 1960s A Buick'

its toothless mouth smiling like a corpse, its eves gouged out

A half-burnt, aluminum skeleton (Ozgur couldn't tell what

m.ke it was. but its tear license plate was stil in place ) She got

a i,hiff of burning firewood which enveloped the street like a

cloud risingfrom the underworld She felt the warnth absorbed

by the asphalt spread through her body as she walked haphaz'

ardly amongst the strewn nails, bolts, hoods, broken glass and

puddles of oil. Awarehouse btew a breath ofchilly ar at her fa'e

There was something about this street that seemed so farniliar

to her. lts scent, maybe Her fatheY used to wear the scent of

the factort the ma.hines, the cables where he wotked when he

cane holne. In 6zgnr's eyes, it was a huge, masculine' confi-

dence'inspiring world where onlv big and important ork was

done. Why hadn't sh€ t\'/itten even a single letter in months'

since she'd besun wYiting her novel? Why hadn't she called Eli'

not even once? Maybe she had preferred preserving the void

within and writinghim to the real Eli'

'fte singular exhilaration triggered bv the firewoYks was

extinguished as quickiy as a batloon punctuled bv a needle 'Ihe

moment she rea.hed the heart of realitv, that she captured eter

nity, it had alteady sliPped through her fingers lt had once aSain

donned its veit of lifestvles svmbols, and con'ePts Mavbe trite

lyrics, nelancholy singers, druns, and hreworks were its unaP

preciated guides l played Anne lrank again Mine js the crv

baby sentimentality of migrants When our loneliness becones

CiJ' in Crinson Clo.k

toopainful, we transferit ftom vessel to v€ssel, attributingsuchprotundity to life, which is, in reality, so utrerty meaningtessJ"

She was obsessing about the te.hnical details of her novel. forexample, the first person sections lhat she was couldn,t decide

wh€tler to inregrate into her novel ornot. And she didn,tknowwhere to put the Poinr Zero .hapter either. At this point, whatshe had construct€d was more tuagile than a house ofcalds. One

mistak€, and itwas bound to collapse. She 6leda footnote in thecorner of hd nind: 'Ha,ari, which means Grework in Japanese,

is the combination ofHani and Bi; that is Fire, which symbolizesdeath, and Flower, which slmbotizes tife...

.Het gjve me yourpurse, or I ll stityour throatt"

She raised her eyes from the ground, bewitdered Like a patient aroused tuom slumber. She .ouldn't understand whv she

was being disturbed.

"Het youll'm talkin'to you. cive me yourpurse!''fte young woman in front of her was a ptump, extremely

sholt mulatto, barely reaching OzgLir's chin. Her dark brownskin gleam€d beneath the light o{ the street lamp, and she hadiarge, phosphorcs.ent teeth. Her eyes were like those ofa squirrel, aDd seemed slightly crossed. She was eighteen at tle most,butherface had become agedbefole it had even shed the pimples

ofadolescence. Sh€ was wearing a bright pink blouse.'.What anoninous colorl" Ozgr:r thought. Sh€ hated pink.

''No, dear. I certainly WILL NOT give you ny purse, Ozgorheaid a voice say; but neither the ghoulish voice nor rhe words

"Give it to me or I'll siit your throat."

She sl:ng the broken bottl€ in her hand in a slipshod, halfhearted motion. For a briefmoment the dust rais€d by the windflick€red, drawing a shiny arc in the aiL l}le threat she posedwas

such a shokpiece thar Ozgur immediately sensed she was an

amateur. Irom her bod% OzsLlt could cleatlv tead the fear thar

she tried to .onceal beneath her poker {a'e A shot of 'ourage

borowed by someone determin€d to act detelmined She felt

a pang of sympathy, and considered shating evervthing she had

with the gi/l She even felt bad that all she h'd lefr was a few

measly reais. ror a moment, both of them paused lhev didn t

knowhowto go on After afew seconds that seemed to last cen-

tuies, the young woman repeated her previous line' probablv

because she could think of nothjng better'

"I'm teljnsyou, give me your purse!CaPiche?'

Suddenl, her eyes flared up No matterhow much her mjnd

nay have been dulled by hunget andbeatjngs, she hadbeen liv'

ing on the streets of Rio for vears. Shewas as cunningas a game

animal that had been comered time and time again Moreover'

she was a keen iudge of character as i,ell She immediatelv dis

.erneal that the scrawnv, hagsatd' absent minded wonan before

her was a foteigner'

"Dollarsl Dollarsl Understand? she said in English

"I dont have any dolla/s, sweetie," ozgur said in suddenlv

lluent Portuguese. The truth is she realy couldn't stand being

mistaken for a tourist''I'm gonna slit Your throatl '

his tjme she s@ng the bottle with more aplomb' and the

dust flickered on.e again Having discerned that her victim was

a foreigner had boosted her self confidence and intensined het

hatred. An arrogant smirk settled onto her face Ozgnr stared

at the woman's ample breasts gushing out ofher revealing pink

hlouse. Due to theirhelqht ditrerence, she 'odd

even pick out the

woman's nipples lhey were the most attractive pair of breasts

she had seen in her entire life ftev stood uplight' as if swol

len with milk, robust, luscious. She felt sornehow ashamed of

her own iron-board flat body She looked at the girl's shoulders'

Ciry in Crimson Cloal

which were so nuscular it almost made her seem lik€ she didn,thave a necki at her arms thick like those of a butcherj and ather stomach that strained at her zipper. She certainly didn,t looklike sorneone who was going hungry. Especialy in comparisonto Ozgiir...

the sky was lit up on.e again by the last few fireworks; strag-giers who had missed the real show suddenly, ozsiir betievedherself to be in a musical. As ii in a tittle while, she and the girlwould link arns and sing a few chirpy soDgs togethe4 as if theywoutd spin and sLip and tum a few flamboyant figures, dancingand waving their shiny bottles amonsst the junked cars. A Rio

adaptation of Wert Si.de Srdryl

Ihe rookie outlaw had misinterpreted the look in Ozgiir,seyesi she thought that she was tryine to gauge her opponentin the overtui€ of what would be a fight to the death_ She

tightened her grip on her weapon. Atl of th€ musctes in herbody grew taut, maldng it seem as ifsheA suddenly undergonea glowth spurt; an ugly €xpression spread ov€r her face. ,.I-

need-to get-my-shit,togeth€r,need to get-it-togethel-gottado-something-now." Ihe words were running through Ozgiirthead fitfully like Morse code. ftose brazen breasts sprawledout b€fore her eyes were distracting her. Out ofnowhere sheAbecome the lead actress jn a cheap meiodnma. yet she herselffelt like a spectator who, slck and tired of metodramas, hadbeen forcefuly dragged to the theater. She was both there andnot. Justlike in nightmares, shewatched theperson whom she

knew was herselfprogress step by step to an inevitable end, butwithout beins able to intervene.

"Dollars,s/irga, doIarsl"She flinched violently as if shed received a whiplash to the

back. 'tre word gringa had wenched her out of her odd state ofintoxication. the bird-brained adolescent with the bovine boobs

thought she was a touist, and coutdn't tell th't she lived in a

state of semi-starvation. Did she not see her tatteredpurse and

jeans shreded at the knees? How could she possiblvnot see that

Ozgiir was an advocate of the street peoPle, that she was a cham_

pion of the victims, the downtrodden, the consummate iosersl

She was not a tourist, but a forsaken vagabond lhe swo/d was

6naly out of the sheath Ozgiir nade her move She grabbed a

broken bottle she d noticed lving next to the sidewalk CRINGAI

She nearlyscream€d, out ofspite revolt' lage'

"Nowlet's seeyoucome andgetthe bag, buh? Ifvou canl Mv

name is notg/i,g4lYou beat ne? I am not GRINGA!"

She took short, strained breaths as if she were having an

asthma attack. Het eyes were narrowed and her lips stretched

tightly, reveating her bottom teeth. Now she, too, wore the same

expvession that she'd obsetved on th€ mulatto's face a short

while before. At that moment, it did not occur to her that she

coulddie, ot be killed She had completelv torgotten the concept

of death, \a,hich had twined around her iike irry throughout her

life. She was in a trance thatbordered upon insanitv Acloss {rom

her was a darkbrown, nisshapen, so{t throat, its jugolarvisiblv

putsating that was all Iltat, and the ominous breasts spilling

out of that blouse...

'Ihe young woman's face was as silent as stone Onlv her

eyes revealed, for a fleeting second, a vagu€ surpdse Her eves

were 61ed upon No, not Ozgiir, but something behind her'

Gradualy apploaching footsteps One-two three " 6ve steps'

Like the{ootsteps that a death lowinmate waitinginhis execu

tion cell hears at dawn . Ozgiir counted five steps in the deafen'

ing noise, as if an entire citv were collapsing at her verv ears

Oi naybe th€ frreworks had gone off again A steel hand seized

her h€art, and with a terrible for.e pushed it down' towards her

stomach. A click ]lle inevitable, lethal swish of a bulet sliding

City in C'imson Cloak

into the barrel- An irreversible, merciless reality too intenseto deny... And she thought sh€ heard a whistling sound, too.Trat odd whistling sound that she heard when walking downSanta Teresa, and which resenbled the sound ofa humongousbird spieadirg its wings... Ihe man with the murderous face!

Of course, there were two ofthemt fte most popular muggingmethod in Riol How sheA been dupedl SheA fatten into a tnpwhich even the most iner?elienced tourist would not fali. She

felt somethingwarm run dowDherlegs, which atthat moment,felt like melting buttel. Fo, the 6rst time in her life. she was

"Itt not overyet.l stiu have a chanc€.l tl toss away the bottte.No, I'll lay it dom, slowly. Nol First, I'il tel them that I surren,der, and theb I'li put it dowl. Whatever you do, don,t make anysudden movements! Do not ups€t them! Everything has to happen slowly. C'mon now, garher yourstrengthand tatktTALK|',

Silence... Her tongue was tied in a taut knot; not a singleword came out of her mouth. 'Itre bottte slipped fron Ozgurthand and shattered on her foot, but she was obtivious to it. She

placed her right hand on her bag and fett the warm teather. Aneighteenth b;thday present from her mothe!. She hadD't seen

anotherpurse as practicalas that on€ in the ten yearc since. She

could 6t her books and her ballet equipment in it, and jt even

had secret compartments. She nust have a few /edis lefr in herwallet. House keys... Where could she sleep tonight? Sunscreen,

wristwatch, atel€phone book containing all oftheaddresses andtelephon€ numbers that she knew in the whoie wide world...Hergood luck necklace... She nn herfinsers overherbag,like a

pregnant woman feelingherstomach. She felt abulse.me City inCrimson Cloakl The only .opy o{ her novei, wirh aI of her notes.everyword she'd written in the last two years, was jn that greennotebook. the only thing she could say to Rio, the onty answer

she could give... A nonological dialogue "Forgetit, shesaidto

hprselfin Turkish. FORGET IT IT'S NOTWORTH lT"

She undoubte(lly head the ftrnbte explasion at het lerv eals' but she

didh'thare time to make sense of it She dbeen luekv Befarc she e1'en

rcalized she'd been shot, she fell face up onto the sidewalk' as if beins

pulled rlown to the ground by a healv mask. Without haring ro en

dure unbearable agony, without experiencing the hortor af knawing

that yau are .ertaln ta die in a sho/t amaunt af time, without moking

o single sound, she net her death ln iust the anount of time that it

takes fot anuprighthumahbody ta.ollapse anto the gtaund Anin

rcnspicuous, unwitnessed, Ianely death-just the kind af death that

befit her personalihv A completely coincidehtdl conpletelv mean

ingbss death, with ha prcyerc, na hvmns no trunpets ituolved

Nobody can know if she suffered ot not ot if her life passed before

her very eyes like a navie rcel. Het final' silent scream rcmained

unanswered in the ,ast ocean of silence

Patrolmen from the Catete Police Headquartets maklng theil

rounds on Mandav nornins noticed that she still clung anto her bag

And that her eyes @ere wide apen Not out of feat or paih, at hottur'

but marc like an expression of nental concentntian As if at that

mament, she vras trying to explain death itself ln a citv 'alled

Rio de

Janeiro,anana inary Sunday .onv'.llsing 'rith firewatks, as the skv

surrendere(t itself ta darkness ance again after the ttopieal sundown;

as the suffoating heat cantinued xs qtunni'al teign despite the

otean brceze: as the women af Rio finished putting on their make'up

ta ga to Sunday dan.es, out to dinne/ ot to 4 rcncert; as the buses

packed full of wet haited, salt'scented passenEers Qme back fran

the Capa@bana bearh; as kiask vlo*ers turned on 'offee

pats ana

rolled out kegs of beer fat the thi/stv trureles jaurnevikg thrcugh

a l,ast darkness; as street (hitdrcn set aut to find their nothets fot

dinner: as the Blue Hill favela announced to the (itv that the Neek s

Ciry in Crinson Cloak

supplt of coAine was now up fot sale, and sonewherc out there, fardway, nelancholy choral nelodies rang out; she was tyingto explain

what it was like to die on a strcet full of junk carc, brcken glax, and

ail stains. Stunneil to be the hercine of a traledy for the first and

Iast time, to be conftonting an indomitable rcality one on one... Her

eyes gaping in a quest of splendid adjectiles, .rucial inages, and the

words closest to reality itself. Ihet wete trying to conyey that single

moment, that moment when life shnnks etema y into a spa.eless

point, and thus expands eternally. Actltallr, she had died exactl, as

One of Turkey's most challenging young authors, AsL Eldogan

has been a critical su.cess both in Turkey and Europe. A fomerphysicist r^'ho abandoned her scientific career for a literary one,

Erdogan's frrst book, the novel Kabuk Adan (The Shell Man), was

published in 1994. She went on to make her mark abroad two

years later when she received the Deutsche Welle Prize for her

short story "]he Wooden Birds." Erdogan has devoted helsel{ to

writins ful-time since 1996.

From 1998 to 2000 Erdogan, a human rights activist and form€r Tukish representative of PENs Writers in prjson Commjttee,

wrote a column for the Turkish newspaper Radiftal entided "fteOthers . Her aticles were later collected and published as thebook

Bir Yaleluk Ne Zaman Biter (when a Joumey Ends). Two of these

articles are featured in the 2004 edition of M.E.E.T.'s journal.

Edogan has also participated in vadous exhibitions both

in Turkey and abroad, and has recently been a featured guest

at international literary and arts events such as the Beau Arts

Festivalin Brussels, the Kunstf€stival in Antwerp, where she r€ad

togethey with Emine Sevgi ozdamar. A piece from her upcoming

book was most recently staged by Serra Y naz in halian at the

Festival Teatro Europa Mediterraneo in Milan in October of this