Zoetrope: All-Story Extra

    When the summer arrives in northern Brazil, the men arrive as well. One by one, they appear behind the geranium plants on the hotel balconies overlooking the seashore. Golden beaches and soft dunes stretch to the limit of vision. When the breeze comes off the turquoise water, palm trees move green fingers under indigo sky, mixing a salty ocean fragrance with the delicious scent of frying shrimps.
    The ocean hostesses gather in groups beside the straw kiosks, giggling and sneaking side looks at the newcomers. The girls stand, dark and graceful in colorful bikinis. Their ribs show under the smooth skin, but their backsides are round and ready.
    A Frenchman waves to an American who, in his turn, nods to other tourists. It is a matter of politeness; they do not intend to make friends.
    On the beach, the view seems like carnival scenery. A pleasant, unthreatening sensuality fills the eyes and penetrates the body. Bikinis outline the girls' soft curves.
    One girl-child or another, never older than fourteen, says to Johan, "Your skin is so white." It is a local variation of "Do you come here often?" He smiles, not yet deciding.
    Other men are asked, "What's the time?" As if it mattered. They have left their watches behind because here hours have no meaning. In brand-new Lycra swimming suits, they stretch on lazy chairs, drinking beer from sweating cans or coconut water from green coconuts. In the welcoming atmosphere, they are ready to drop their memories and their values the way they drop their clothes on hotel room floors. They don't take long to adjust to the slow rhythm of life and the laziness of the hot hours.
    The heat blurs the image of home until the men forget their time is measured by projects, advancing toward a planned future. Their time becomes the reflection of tides, sunsets and mealtimes. They finally find the space and the spirit for romance. Even the girls' limited English hardly matters. Love is so good, so easy, so light.
    The girls sit beside the rich foreigners and wait for salvation.
    Loud introductions take place in front of Johan. His gaze follows Steve, Peter, and Hans as they take Mariana, Luiza, and Clo to the hotel. Two other girls stay behind, lost in their drugged minds. They are the cheapest but the most unstable, so the foreigners avoid them.
    Johan sips a Heineken, his gaze scanning the place. A lovely girl passes by him, her footsteps leaving traces for the sea's tongue to lick.
    Isabela. Once, somebody cared enough to give her the name she will later tell Johan. Many heads turn after her. She may not be the prettiest girl on the beach, but her slow, swinging walk, the proud way she holds her head up and the gleam in her green-brown eyes suggest she is. Her blackened eyelashes and her reddened lips do not make her look mature but rather like a girl trying on her mother's make-up. She is as young as anyone's daughter. Her time is cheap but strictly counted. Strangely, she is choosy too. She smiles at the men who look friendly and not too ugly and ignores the ones that reach out for her.
    Johan waves and lilts his head over his right shoulder, his face a question and an invitation. In response, a smile unveils her pearly teeth. She approaches him so he can breath in her coconut-oil scent before they negotiate a price. A week's deal will guarantee Johan her full attention, her playful company and above all, her young and ever-ready body. They reach an agreement and fix a price. Both are satisfied, yet their reasons differ. While his holiday moves in a straight line towards its end, Isabela's time moves in circles. The men come and go. As one leaves, another arrives. The money comes with them and goes with them. It pays the rent of a room she shares with other three girls, the food and the distance from home, though she can never bring herself to call the slum "home."
    Isabela takes his hand in hers, cocoa and milk. Though he is not yet forty, his skin seems aged beside her silken arm. They walk along the water line, mingling with other couples. An inexperienced eye might mistake these pairs for real lovers. A closer look however, would reveal that all the men are two, three, four or even five times older than the girls. Isabela laughs readily. Other girly voices ring around them. The foreigners might appreciate the girls' professionalism if they didn't believe the pleasure was real.
    Isabela runs backwards and kicks a pink seashell toward Johan's bare foot.
    "So how's life here?" he asks, kicking the seashell back at her.
    She picks the shell and throws it a long way into the ocean. "I am lucky!" she says. "It is easier for a girl to earn a living than for a boy."
    Johan laughs. "I'd think so."
    They spend the slow hours of the siesta in his hotel room. Afterwards, naked on his bed, she tells him she must go visit her cousin at a hospital not far from the hotel. The visiting hours are few and she must not miss them.
    "Will you come back to me?" he teases like an old lover.
    "Sure."

    She finds her cousin, Edu, lying on a bed in the corridor of the over-crowded hospital. With her hands crossed over her chest, she counts the drops infused into his bloodstream as if they measured his time. She last met him at his family's hut in the slum. That hot afternoon, she sat by the door when he came down the dirt path holding a ball to his bare chest. Two boys accompanied him, instinctively imitating the agile movement of his dark stringy body. Kids always followed him. No wonder. She too wanted to enter the light that seemed to surround him. He said hello and remained quiet by her side. His body smelled of sweat and soil and weeds. They leaned against the plywood wall, their shoulders touching. She smiled at the sky. He asked her if she would kiss him on the mouth and she did. They pulled back, a little embarrassed. Then they kissed again, sweetly. His mother's voice interrupted what had just started, and they entered the hut.
    Isabela wanted to roll with Edu in the dunes. But it was not bound to happen.
    The police reported that he was involved in a gang fight. Naturally, Isabela doesn't believe the police version. A year ago, she saw them dragging a beggar into the police car, and his face, pressed to the window, was the last thing she ever saw of him. She could do nothing about it but cry, so she did not do even that.
    When the visiting hour is over, she places a kiss on Edu's forehead and returns to Johan. Her mind goes blank. Two years of work have transformed the slipstream of affairs to second nature. She doesn't care anymore when the men touch her body wherever they want. Not really. Their lust for her keeps them harmless and useful. Her body doesn't wake up during sex with foreigners. It only revives in the dunes.
    That night, in an hour of passion, Johan promises her marriage, wealth, safety. Isabela turns to him, moved. Numerous others have said the same, and she still listens.
    Would a prince on an airplane take her home with him? It's not an illusion, no. She has heard about a girl who married a Canadian and has lived with him happily forever after. She places Johan's palm on her chest, under her small breast. "Feel my heart!" she says. Pain cuts through her at the thought of losing Edu, but she can take pain.
    From now on, her enchantment is focused. Johan's days and nights pass under this spell: Isabela dancing, smiling, chatting, loving. She cooks Moqueca for him. With the patient movement of the fingers, she peels the tomato skin. She mixes Dende oil with hot spices that should catch him up at his chest: garlic, onion, pepper, vinegar. The coconut milk should ease his fiery sensation. She cuts in the fish she chose this morning in the market. She mixes it all in a pan while the rice steams in another.
    Johan's eyes soften and his reserved laughter opens up. Her place in the expression of his pale face and in the heat of his round body becomes a kind of home.
    On his last day in Brazil, he packs his suitcase, folding the shirts and rolling the underwear like a trained traveler. He glances at her as she sits on the bed biting her lips.
    "I'll miss you," he repeats.
    When he leaves on the airport bus, she stands in front of the hotel and waves him goodbye. His face is pressed against the window, his nose and his lips are light yellow circles on the glass. Isabela's new dress clings to her legs, marking the delicate outline of her body, and her hair surrenders to the breeze. She straightens her back when the hurt bites and tries to bend her double.
    Another bus takes another man. The end of this circle touches the beginning of another.
    It is almost sunset.
    She goes back to the beach.