Crimes Of August Part 38

"THE BEST THING is to let her sleep," said Dr. Arnoldo. "Alice isn't well. She's deeply depressed. I'm going to call her husband."

"She's separated from her husband," Mattos said.

"Legally?"

"Not yet."

"I always take the precaution of communicating with the family, in case of certain treatments-"

"What treatments?"

"Electroshock. This isn't the first time it's been considered in Alice's case."

"But can't electroshock cause harmful effects, like loss of memory?"

"You just told me she said she wanted to forget, and that's why she burned the diary she was writing. Don't you find that significant?" Pause. "In any case, any amnesia provoked by the treatment is always transitory."

"Don't do it, doctor, I'm begging you, please. When she wakes up, maybe she'll be better."

"This state of depression and melancholia only tends to get worse."

"She wasn't depressed this morning when I left. Please, promise me you'll wait a few days."

"All right. I'll wait a bit. In fact, as a rule that's the procedure I adopt. In any event, I'm going to have to advise the husband. They're still not legally separated. She doesn't have any relatives, understand?"

"Can't I be responsible for her?"

"You're not anything to her-you're a good friend, I know-but she has a husband."

"I'll come back later."

"Come tomorrow. She's going to sleep all afternoon and all night. She'll be well taken care of, don't worry."

"No shock treatment, please."

"That's a layman's prejudice, sir. Historically, every medical advance meets hostile objections based on ignorance and superst.i.tion. There are people who for religious reasons refuse to accept blood transfusions. Others, out of ignorance, refuse to take allopathic medicines. Et cetera."

"Doctor, I go on duty tomorrow at noon. But I'll stop by here first."

IT WAS ELEVEN AT NIGHT when General Zenbio asked Marshal Mascarenhas to come to the War Department.

"The situation has gotten worse," said Zenbio. "More than forty army generals signed the brigadiers' manifesto. I've asked Mendes de Morais to go to the Catete to speak with Alzira. I'm waiting for the general to return."

The two sat, downcast, in the brown leather armchairs in the secretary's office. They had served together in the FEB. Mascarenhas, then a three-star general, had commanded the 25,162 men of the Brazilian Expeditionary Force sent to Italy in 1944. Zenbio, then a two-star general, had commanded one of the five echelons into which the Force was divided.

"In Italy it was easier to make decisions," said Zenbio, rising impatiently. "I think we'd better go to the Catete and speak with the president. I'm going to ask Denys to go with us."

It was past midnight when they arrived at Catete Palace. The children and other relatives of the president were at the palace. Vargas received Mascarenhas and Zenbio in the presence of Secretary Oswaldo Aranha. In silence, he heard Zenbio say that he, the president, had lost the support of the military.

"Tomorrow I'll call a cabinet meeting," said Vargas.

Mascarenhas proposed calling the meeting immediately, and the suggestion was accepted by the president.

A little after two a.m., all the cabinet secretaries were in the meeting room of the palace. Only the secretary of foreign affairs was absent.

Vargas sat in the dark, straw-bottom chair at the head of the table in the meeting room. The secretaries were in their places, silent. All the lights were on, but at meetings held at night the room was always dark, gloomy. Vargas contemplated, for moments, the painting by Antonio Parreiras on the opposite wall, an oil in tones of gray that the artist had t.i.tled "A Day of Sadness."

In a tired voice, the president, after recounting the information given him by his military secretaries, asked those present for their opinions. The military secretaries confirmed that the navy and air force were united in wanting the president's resignation; the army was divided. The military secretaries advised resignation.

While they were speaking, Alzira Vargas came into the room, along with Deputy Danton Coelho, the president's son-in-law Amaral Peixoto, and others.

The president then asked the civilian secretaries for their opinion. The acting labor secretary, Hugo de Faria, said that the Const.i.tution must be respected and maintained, and that the president should not resign. Oswaldo Aranha and Jose Americo shared the opinion of the military secretaries, favorable to resignation. The rest were hesitant, none of them offering an objective view.

At that instant, Alzira came from the back of the room and stood beside the president's chair.

"What about you, General Caiado? I want your opinion," said Vargas.

"Mr. President. Don't accept any imposition. I favor armed resistance. The army, even divided, as the secretary claims, will prevent any subversion."

"If you give me the name of the regiment that's going to resist, I, with due authorization from the president, will issue the command," said Zenbio.

"So be it," said Caiado.

"General Zenbio," shouted Deputy Danton Coelho from the back of the room, "it's your fault if the army is divided."

"I reject your false and rude a.s.sertion. I will not permit anyone to address me like that," Zenbio responded.

"General," Alzira said, "I was surprised and disappointed when you suggested that the president resign. I ask you: why can't we resist? I think the only thing missing is the will to fight."

"Resistance will lead to bloodshed. We will be defeated," said Zenbio.

"Then let us be defeated, but fighting," said Alzira.

There were two alternatives on the table: armed resistance or resignation. Amaral Peixoto added a third: a furlough. The president would take a leave of absence until the PMI investigating the Tonelero crime was concluded.

Several of those present, both the cabinet members and those who had intruded into the meeting, began to talk at once. Lourival Fontes, head of the Civilian Cabinet, seated beside Mascarenhas, turned to him and said, "This is becoming a circus."

In the middle of the tumult, Vargas looked at the J.B. Deletrezz grandfather's clock standing between the gray-and-scarlet curtains of the large doors opening onto the garden, totally dark. The hands on the white porcelain dial showed 4:15 a.m. Vargas felt spent. From the beginning he had not expected solid support for a fight; he knew human nature. He had partic.i.p.ated, in his political career, in intrigues, revolts, conspiracies, coups, revolutions. Thus the cautious faces of the majority of the cabinet members, and their evasive words, cloaked in abdicative metaphors-Jose Americo had suggested a "grand gesture" on his part, almost an echo of the "elegant gesture of the vanquished" proposed by Jose Bonifacio of the UDN-had not come as a surprise but merely added to his weariness.

With one final effort he spoke, silencing the voices, bringing an end to the uproar. "If the military members of the cabinet guarantee that the inst.i.tutions will be maintained, I will take a leave of absence."

After saying this, accompanied by his daughter, Vargas withdrew from the room, to applause. On the third floor, before entering the bedroom where he slept alone-his wife, Dona Darcy, slept in another room in the palace-his daughter embraced and kissed him.

Tancredo Neves, the secretary of justice, was charged with drafting the note expressing the presidential decision to take a leave of absence and hand over the reins of government to his lawful replacement. Seeking to preserve the president's dignity, it would state that this was a spontaneous decision that had received the full support of his cabinet. Tancredo would further say that the president had demanded that order and respect for the Const.i.tution be maintained and the commitments solemnly a.s.sumed before the nation by the generals of the armed forces be honored. The note would end by saying that if such were not the case, the president would persevere in his unshakable objective to defend his const.i.tutional prerogatives by the sacrifice of his very life. Tancredo, Oswaldo Aranha, Mascarenhas, and the other friends of the president believed that this compromise solution, in the declaration to be promulgated immediately, would avoid resignation, civil war, the humiliation of the president.

CAFe FILHO received the first compliments as new president of the Republic while still in pajamas, at 4:30 that morning in his residence. Radio stations, defying police censorship, had just broadcast that president Vargas had resigned. The president of the Lantern Club, the journalist Amaral Neto, was the first to congratulate Cafe Filho. Surrounded by opposition leaders, Cafe Filho declared that he planned to calm spirits and preside over a government of national unity. "My personal guard will be my wife," he affirmed.

When, at 5:20, the chief of police stated on the radio that it was not actually a case of a resignation and that President Vargas had merely left the position temporarily, the enthusiasm of those present at Cafe Filho's home was replaced by an atmosphere of tense expectation.

At seven a.m., Cafe Filho isolated himself from the others in his home to confer with Afonso Arinos and Bilac Pinto, who had just arrived.

twenty-four.

ALONE IN HIS BEDROOM, Vargas slowly removed his clothes and put on the striped pajamas lying on the pillow.

Fresh in Vargas's memory was the humiliated face of his daughter when they left the meeting, arm in arm. Alzira had gone with him to his bedroom to tell him that the cowards had left; those loyal to him were ready to do battle.

He had refused to fight. He had asked his daughter to let him go to sleep. Would Alzira one day forgive him for the cowardice of that moment?

He finished putting on the pajamas. He deliberately avoided looking at his image reflected in the two large mirrors on the room's antique armoires. The picture of Christ in one corner, a Sacred Heart by the painter Decio Villares, brought back the fleeting memory of a conversation he had had about the painting with Cardinal Pacelli when he spent two days in the palace, in 1934, a few years before he became Pope Pius XII.

He turned out the light and lay down.

Morning was slow to arrive. Benjamim came to his room to tell him he had been summoned to testify at Galeo and that Zenbio had met with the other generals at the War Department to affirm that in reality the president had not taken a leave of absence but had been deposed. This, too, he had expected.

He remembered once again the suffering he had seen on his daughter's face, thought about his own refusal to fight. Thought about death. He began to cry. Benjamim, who had never seen him weep, not even when they were children, was moved. His hand on his brother's shoulder, he asked him not to give his enemies that satisfaction. "You've gotten out of worse situations." Benjamim withdrew, and Getlio lay back down. He thought about Capanema's speech in the Chamber defending him against the unjust attacks directed at him. He remembered what he had told his parliamentary leader: he, Getlio Vargas, president of the Republic, could not abandon his post, could not leave, whether from fear, vanity, or self-interest. He had to stay, in face of the exigencies of the political majority that supported him. But he had, further, a duty to his name. The name of the president was a sacred name. The president was like a king, like a prince. He governed in the name of the monarch of the world, as Bossuet said. And that monarch of the world established that the name of the president had something of the sacred to it. Whoever exercised the presidency of the Republic had the duty, and not merely the right, to defend his name, because that name was not only that of Getlio Vargas, it was the name of the president of the Republic. The president of the Republic had to honor the dignity inherent in his function, in his office, in his power. He had the duty to defend his name and, in defense of his name, could not resign, because resignation would be to confirm the suspicions.

VERY EARLY, Inspector Mattos went to the Dr. Eiras Clinic to find out about Alice.

"She can't have visitors," said an employee at the reception area.

"But is she all right?"

"Dona Alice is sleeping. Dr. Arnoldo was here today, and she was medicated. Maybe she'll be able to have visitors soon."

"Is Dr. Arnoldo in the clinic?"

"No, he left. He must be seeing other patients."

LYING IN BED, his eyes open but not seeing, Vargas imagined how his death would be received by his enemies. His letter, which had been written as a farewell to government and not to life, a rough draft done days before at the request of Maciel Filho, his friend and a.s.sistant since the 1930s, could also serve, even better, as a definitive goodbye. The letter, poorly typed, was on the marble top of the bedroom's small chest of drawers, beside the bathroom door.

When the steward Barbosa entered the room to shave him, Vargas was standing, immobile, in the middle of the room, wearing his striped pajamas. The steward asked him to put on a robe, as it was cold. "It doesn't matter," he replied. He added that he didn't want to shave.

Barbosa left, and Vargas was once again alone.

He would do what must be done. Requital and redemption. A euphoric sense of pride and dignity engulfed him. Yes, his daughter would now forgive him.

He took the revolver from the dresser drawer and lay down in the bed. He rested the barrel of the gun against the left side of his chest and pulled the trigger.

MAJOR DORNELLES was speaking with Barbosa, in the hallway.

"Did the president say anything?"

"He said it didn't matter."

"What didn't matter?"

"I asked him to put on his robe because it's cold, and he said it didn't matter."

They heard a shot. Dornelles ran to the bedroom, followed by Barbosa. They opened the door and saw the president, in bed, his eyes shut, and a large bloodstain on the left side of his chest.

"Mr. President!" Dornelles shouted.

Barbosa looked in astonishment at the short white hairs appearing on Vargas's pallid face. I should have shaved the president, thought the steward.

Dornelles touched Vargas's arm. "Mr. President! Mr. President!"

"I should've shaved him," Barbosa murmured.

Dornelles ran from the room and returned with Sarmanho, Vargas's brother-in-law.

"My G.o.d!" exclaimed Sarmanho. "Is he dead?"

"I don't know," said Dornelles. "We have to telephone Medical Emergency."

The telephone in the bedroom, a black device on the night table, wasn't working.

"Call General Caiado!" shouted Sarmanho from the door to the room. His yell was so loud that it was heard by those on the ground floor, causing them to peer upward through the great open s.p.a.ce of the stairs.

The chief of the military cabinet entered the room accompanied by Arisio Viana, president of the Diarios a.s.sociados of So Paulo. Viana had heard on the radio news of Vargas's leave of absence and gone to the palace to obtain further information.

Seeing the president wounded, his chest covered in blood, General Caiado fainted and was taken from the room.

Zaratini, the butler, ran to inform the president's wife and children.

THE INSPECTOR ARRIVED at the precinct, and Padua told him: "Getlio killed himself. Vilanova, of the GEP, just left for Catete Palace to do the forensic tests. Jesse de Paiva and Nilton Salles are going to perform the autopsy. Direct orders from the superintendent of police."

"I'm going to the Catete," Mattos said.

He had to see Getlio's dead body.

"Turn the shift over to Rosalvo," Mattos said.

"I can't."

"Then I'll take over ahead of time. Regulations allow that."

"Only if you promise me something."

"What is it?"

"Not to let the b.u.ms I arrested go."