The Mystery of Rio by Alberto Mussa, Alex Ladd Read Free Book Online

Estacio’s head had been shattered—surely revenge by a Tamoio defeated at Uruçumirim, who had opened the grave not to steal but to obtain credit for one more dead.
    And the city’s fate continued to unfold. In the 1660s, shortly after the Cachaça Revolt, a cult of fanatics emerged who were in the habit of digging up slaves, since they did not recognize their right to a burial. They would scatter their bones in public places as an affront. These sacrilegious attacks mainly targeted the cemetery created by the Franciscans for the burial of the order’s own slaves.
    I have already mentioned the case of the obscure French alchemist who traveled with du Clerc’s fleet and caused similar disturbances. But the great terror begins in the nineteenth century, when a wave of necrophilia hit, whose apogee was during the Parnassian period. It was perhaps this coincidence that gave rise to the charges against the poet Bilac. His detractors never understood him, and make an analogy that seems a bit cruel: that Parnassians and necrophiliacs care only about form, ignoring content.
    This era also saw the systematic trading of corpses, stolen from graves and then sold to the schools of medicine and surgery. The most interesting case was that of Paiva, a recently graduated medical student and a close friend of Álvares de Azevedo, who unknowingly dissected the remains of his own sister.
    The nineteenth century also saw the first appearance of the living dead—or
cazumbis
—who have nothing to do with Semeão de Arganil’s golem. True
cazumbis
are dead who are resurrected in order to be their creators’ slaves.
    Some experts say that they come from the
jeje
kingdoms of Dahomey. No one can ignore the power of
jeje
magic. Both mummification and the resurrection of
cazumbis
were sciences of ancient Nubia, which were assimilated by the pharaohs of Egypt and various secret societies that began to flourish in the region of Lake Nyanza, particularly the blacksmith clans of Bantu-speaking tribes.
    In their tremendous march south, the Bantus spread. Although much was lost in this diaspora, certain peoples were formed based on all of this knowledge and on these secret associations. The most notable example being the
caçanjes
, from Angola.
    That was the race of the walled-in witch, but neither the captain nor Baeta suspected that Rufino also belonged to these people.
    Â 
    Ever since he had ordered Rufino’s release on the 23rd, the chief of police instructed that the men of the seventh district in Santa Teresa should keep him under observation, and should always communicate to him any strange occurrences, any actions that broke with the legendary sorcerer’s well-known routines. This would not be an overt surveillance; the aim was to know who he was looking for, or who was looking for him, and whether he was frequenting different locations than his usual ones.
    So, on the morning of the 27th, as soon as the officers of Mauá Square arrested the old man on the corner of Riachuelo, the police chief was notified, and knocked on Baeta’s office door, which was in the same building on Relação Street. It was then that he learned of the raided graves and of the somewhat vague clues used to justify the warrant.
    If he were not forceful, even despotic, with the First District, he would lose control of the case. And he resolved matters with one phone call, which caught the captain by surprise just as this new individual was being brought in.
    â€œI’ll interrogate the two of them. Personally. Right here on Relação Street.”
    The statement by Aniceto—the man arrested trying to enter Rufino’s house—would close promising avenues and would virtually shut down the entire investigation, increasing the mystery surrounding the murder at the House of Swaps.
    Aniceto was born on San Antonio Hill and had lived in Gamboa, Saúde, Pinto Hill, and Pedra do Sal. He was born to a