from the box, they went to the dance floor.
The people swirling around them were dressed as rabbits and rodents, harlequins and harlots, grande dames and playschool children, villains and viscounts, convicts and cooks, pirates and priests.
Surprising to Fletch, Jetta seemed a wooden dancer. She clung to Fletch as she might to a log in the middle of the sea. He suspected she resisted such music.
A few meters away, Orlando, breechclout flapping, was dancing wildly with a woman in a blond wig. The concentration in his eyes as he danced put him in another world. The woman’s dress exposed only one breast totally.
At the edge of the dance floor, a dozen men stood absolutely still, staring up, their mouths agape. Above them was a woman sitting on the rail of a box, her bare buttocks hanging over the rail. The woman herself was not visible: just her bare buttocks hanging over the rail.
Jetta followed Fletch’s gaze. “Brazilians are so relaxed about their bodies,” said the young French film star. “So practical.”
Feeling almost intoxicated with sleeplessness, Fletch envisioned Tito and Toninho turning Norival upside down in the bushes, kicking the vomit out of his stomach; Tito and Orlando, naked, kick-dancing, then wrestling, laughing, on the burned-out grass; the magnificent Eva standing in the door of the small, dark room where Norival lay dead, clutching her left breast with both hands, looking mildly pleased with herself; harness and broomsticks and calculating where a corpse dropped into the tide would be by dawn….
Jetta ran her hands up the smooth sleeves of Fletch’s shirt to his shoulders and said, “You were so late in coming.”
Even though dancing, sleep passed through Fletch’s brain like a curtain dragging across a stage. “I had to sit up a sick friend.”
Eighteen
Alone in his room at The Hotel Yellow Parrot, Fletch first dialed The Hotel Jangada and asked for Room 912.
There was no answer in Room 912.
Not even taking off his movie cowboy suit, he fell on his bed. He thought he would sleep immediately. It was nearly seven o’clock in the morning. He was not used to going to sleep at seven o’clock in the morning.
Getting up, he dropped his clothes on the floor. Then he crawled beneath the sheet.
Even at that hour of the bright morning, the sound of a samba combo could be heard from somewhere in the street. He rolled onto his side and pulled the pillow over his ear. Eyes closed, flesh wavered everywhere in his mind: big, soft, pliant breasts with huge nipples swinging to the beat; long, smooth backs danced away from him; brown buttocks dimpled as they moved; gorgeous long legs bent and straightened as feet pressed gently against the earth, the dance floor in the rhythm of the melodic samba drums.
Fletch got out of bed and called Room Service for breakfast.
While he waited, he took a long, hot shower.
Alone, a towel around his waist, he ate breakfast sitting in a corner of his room. Sunday morning. For once, the man across the utility area was not painting the room.
He called The Hotel Jangada again, again asked for Mrs Joan Stanwyk in Room 912.
Again there was no answer.
He closed the drapes against the bright morning and got into bed.
He tried lying like a statue on a crypt, like Norival dead on the bed at the old plantation house, flat on his back, his hands crossed on his stomach. He tried counting the members of a woman’s pole-vaulting team leaping over the barrier. At the nineteenth redhead taking her turn with the brunettes and blondes going over the barrier, he knew sleep was unattainable.
He called The Hotel Jangada again.
Heavily slogging around the room, he opened the window drapes.
He pulled on clean shorts, a clean tennis shirt, socks, and sneakers.
Outside the hotel, in the brilliant sunlight, the small boy, Idalina’s great-grandson Janio Barreto, was waiting for him.
The boy grabbed Fletch’s arm. He hobbled along with Fletch, speaking rapidly, softly,
The people swirling around them were dressed as rabbits and rodents, harlequins and harlots, grande dames and playschool children, villains and viscounts, convicts and cooks, pirates and priests.
Surprising to Fletch, Jetta seemed a wooden dancer. She clung to Fletch as she might to a log in the middle of the sea. He suspected she resisted such music.
A few meters away, Orlando, breechclout flapping, was dancing wildly with a woman in a blond wig. The concentration in his eyes as he danced put him in another world. The woman’s dress exposed only one breast totally.
At the edge of the dance floor, a dozen men stood absolutely still, staring up, their mouths agape. Above them was a woman sitting on the rail of a box, her bare buttocks hanging over the rail. The woman herself was not visible: just her bare buttocks hanging over the rail.
Jetta followed Fletch’s gaze. “Brazilians are so relaxed about their bodies,” said the young French film star. “So practical.”
Feeling almost intoxicated with sleeplessness, Fletch envisioned Tito and Toninho turning Norival upside down in the bushes, kicking the vomit out of his stomach; Tito and Orlando, naked, kick-dancing, then wrestling, laughing, on the burned-out grass; the magnificent Eva standing in the door of the small, dark room where Norival lay dead, clutching her left breast with both hands, looking mildly pleased with herself; harness and broomsticks and calculating where a corpse dropped into the tide would be by dawn….
Jetta ran her hands up the smooth sleeves of Fletch’s shirt to his shoulders and said, “You were so late in coming.”
Even though dancing, sleep passed through Fletch’s brain like a curtain dragging across a stage. “I had to sit up a sick friend.”
Eighteen
Alone in his room at The Hotel Yellow Parrot, Fletch first dialed The Hotel Jangada and asked for Room 912.
There was no answer in Room 912.
Not even taking off his movie cowboy suit, he fell on his bed. He thought he would sleep immediately. It was nearly seven o’clock in the morning. He was not used to going to sleep at seven o’clock in the morning.
Getting up, he dropped his clothes on the floor. Then he crawled beneath the sheet.
Even at that hour of the bright morning, the sound of a samba combo could be heard from somewhere in the street. He rolled onto his side and pulled the pillow over his ear. Eyes closed, flesh wavered everywhere in his mind: big, soft, pliant breasts with huge nipples swinging to the beat; long, smooth backs danced away from him; brown buttocks dimpled as they moved; gorgeous long legs bent and straightened as feet pressed gently against the earth, the dance floor in the rhythm of the melodic samba drums.
Fletch got out of bed and called Room Service for breakfast.
While he waited, he took a long, hot shower.
Alone, a towel around his waist, he ate breakfast sitting in a corner of his room. Sunday morning. For once, the man across the utility area was not painting the room.
He called The Hotel Jangada again, again asked for Mrs Joan Stanwyk in Room 912.
Again there was no answer.
He closed the drapes against the bright morning and got into bed.
He tried lying like a statue on a crypt, like Norival dead on the bed at the old plantation house, flat on his back, his hands crossed on his stomach. He tried counting the members of a woman’s pole-vaulting team leaping over the barrier. At the nineteenth redhead taking her turn with the brunettes and blondes going over the barrier, he knew sleep was unattainable.
He called The Hotel Jangada again.
Heavily slogging around the room, he opened the window drapes.
He pulled on clean shorts, a clean tennis shirt, socks, and sneakers.
Outside the hotel, in the brilliant sunlight, the small boy, Idalina’s great-grandson Janio Barreto, was waiting for him.
The boy grabbed Fletch’s arm. He hobbled along with Fletch, speaking rapidly, softly,
Similar Books
