LIFE AND
DEATH IN BARRA DE SAO JOAO
by Nelly Capra
Ornella@aol.com
April 99
Barra de São Joãn is not just another village
in the State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is the place where my father built his dream
and is now buried.
The first time I visited Barra, more than 20 years ago, it was winter and the long
beach that runs between the Atlantic Ocean and the River São João, which gives
the name to the village, was empty. The weather was warm, but the light was sad in
that August afternoon and the shadow were already long. I wasn’t
particularly impressed, nothing meaningful had happened there yet, except for the
inheritance. My uncle Giuseppe, who had emigrated to Brazil after the war and lived there
until his death earlier that year, had left a lot near the beach to my father.
Ten years later I returned to Barra with my two-year old daughter Irene. A
beautiful single-story house, surrounded by a green garden graced that lot.
The sign on the wooden gate said: Villa Rosina, my mother’s name. The newly planted
bouganville already sported outsized purple and yellow flours, two young coconut trees
swayed in the breeze. My father proudly walked me around the property to show
me the fruit of his labor.
Two years before he had retired and decided to build this house. My mother had been less
than enthusiastic at the idea, but now she could see that they would be able to
spend the Italian winter in the Brazilian summer and go back to Italy around May each
year. The heat and the see air were going to be a blessing for her arthritis and for
my father’s lungs. They were becoming
hard with the sylicosis he had earned in the Belgian coal mines where he had worked for
several years when he was in his twenties.
“Look at these terracotta floor tiles, don’t you think they look just
great together with the granite countertops? The cabinets are solid wood, look how sturdy
they are” he was telling me. “Irene is going to enjoy the beach, she will meet a
lot of new friends”. The house was invaded by the aroma of lasagne al forno and
arrosto con patate, which my mother was preparing, Italian style, of course. She doesn’t
think much of Brazilian cooking, Italian for her is the best.
I instantly fell in love with everything my senses caught. The long beach now basked in
summer light was alive with people sunbathing and swimming, the red dirt road to
the village, the village itself with its old colonial homes regurgitating with flowers,
ferns, and children, the heat, the laid back sound of Brazilian Portuguese so different
from the Portuguese I had studied in college, the music of Marìa Betanha and Caetano
Veloso. In an instant I had become Brazilian, just like my father. With
that big smile on his face and his deep tan he looked ten years younger.
Standing in line for an hour at the bank with no air conditioning, the understocked
grocery store, the strong smell of unrefrigerated meat at the butcher’s, even
the Brazilian way of driving and living, everything made sense. I had left my
European self in Italy.
I immensely enjoyed my strolls at sunset along the river and sitting at the tile-decorated
bar “Por do Sol” to sip a caipirinha chatting with friends, even as mosquitoes
were quite active. I could feel in the air the excitement of the upcoming Carnaval. People
were discussing parades and samba schools, preparing costumes and carros. The notes of
lambada, the new dance music, resounded everywhere. I was becoming infected with the joy
of life of these people. The lust for life was in the air everywhere. Poverty no longer
mattered.
Five years later I was back in Barra, this time to bury my father. At 71 his sylicosi had
finally caught up with him. He had gotten sick and within three days he had died, just one
week before his scheduled trip to California.
All of a sudden everything I had loved seemed so dangerously alive. The lush hills,
the humming birds, the smell of papayas and mangoes, the voices of my friends, reminded me
of how easy it is to live and die in this tropical country.
“Sorria, Voce chegou em Barra de Sao Joao” , invited a street sign posted at the
entrance of the village, but I found it impossible to smile because I was in Barra de Sao
Joao. How different this road along the river seemed to me now that I was passing
through it with the funeral procession. How sad were the bright blue doors and windows and
the colorful colonial tiles, how
unbearably slow I found these people’s speech and movements. Even the sparkling water
of the river reminded me of the death stories I had been told of people drowning in it. I
no longer felt protected by the rounded shape of O Morro, the giant dormant volcano
overlooking a Prainha, the little beach.
“This place is the reason why your father decided to
build the house here” my mother told me a few days later when we went to put fresh
flowers on his tomb. “ He loved to come here and watch the water of the river meet
the ocean. On one side the small cemetery with the white Baptist chapel, on the
other the little beach with the bar, the umbrellas, and the people, the old
broken bridge in the background. Life and death mixed. He liked to come and visit the tomb
of Casimiro de Abreu, the poet he liked so much.” “Your father loved this land
so much” she continued not even trying to hold back her tears “that he decided
to die here.” I couldn’t help but seeing how right she was. At the moment,
though, I felt Brazil had taken my father away from us. Now the reality of
death had shattered the dream that I secretely shared with him. I needed to go back to the
security of my family in California. I needed to believe that people don’t die in
California. |
