His Own Man by Edgard Telles Ribeiro Read Free Book Online Page B

mansion’s ground floor. In the garden, where she was met with cheers from the guests as a flight of white doves was released, Max greeted her reverently with a chaste kiss on the forehead. A first sign of what would lie ahead.

8
    The twelve years of Max and Marina’s marriage would largely coincide with the worst phase of the dictatorship in our country. And during the tense political situation that marked the end of this period (“slow and gradual easing up,” as the authorities liked to remind everyone), their personal ties would finally unravel.
    It is hard to fathom how Max’s two worlds — his professional and private lives — coexisted. I don’t think they ever really came into contact. But Max had to remain constantly on the alert.
    Although his in-laws’ clan was traditionally conservative, they never backed the military, from whom they distanced themselves to the greatest extent possible. And if their social class had benefited from the repression imposed on the country, particularly in regard to control of unions and the undermining of workers’ expectations, it’s also true that not all who belonged to this segment of our society stood by, or cooperated with, the regime. There were those who sought to remain discreetly neutral. A dignified stance, compared to the position of those who openly approved of the dictatorship — or financed it.
    The Magalhães de Castros’ fortune, moreover, was solid enough that family members weren’t afraid of retaliations and could therefore act independently. For a few years, Marina’s father continued to fund plays and films produced by progressive intellectuals and refused to stop advertising in leftist newspapers that had initially managed to survive thanks to attitudes like his.The
Correio da Manhã
, to cite just one example (and there were many political and literary magazines among them), wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did were it not for the clan’s support.
    Their Santa Teresa mansion served as an oasis in Rio de Janeiro for many years. Despite the atmosphere in the city and the country, people could speak their minds freely within its walls. Every time we entered the gateway to the property’s sprawling grounds and drove past the pool from which friends and acquaintances would wave, drinks in hand, we felt we were entering paradise.
    It was in this same privileged environment, at one of the Sunday luncheons Marina’s parents would periodically organize in order to see their now-married daughter, that I met a colonel friend of Max’s from the Brazilian Coffee Institute.
    I was somewhat taken aback by the way he greeted me. He clicked his heels and bowed his head rather formally. Then he shook my hand firmly and whispered, “Colonel Cordeiro,” in a low voice as if “Colonel” were his first name, the equivalent of João, Marcelo, or Pedro. This was of course customary among the armed forces, giving rank and surname in a single breath. But the fact that I heard it in such a protected space, and that it sounded so irritatingly natural besides, made me feel the stench of oppression right under my nose.
    Of average height and muscular build, the colonel was about fifty years old. He smiled a lot, but somewhat gratuitously, a trait that gave him an air of perpetual politeness, vague and undefined, which did little to ingratiate him with those present. Ironically, his surname, Cordeiro, the Portuguese word for
lamb
, also called to mind the fables of Aesop and La Fontaine, suggesting there was a wolf in sheep’s clothing in our midst — and not even the banality of the cliché comforted me. The colonel’s pointy white teeth contrasted sharply with his friendly appearance, as if at any sign of discord something unexpected might happen. Aside from his teeth, however, I didn’tdetect more overt suggestions of contained violence. On the contrary, his body language remained relaxed. Yet in five minutes of conversation with me, discussing various