His Own Man (2 page)

At twenty-eight, Max was older and more experienced than us — not to mention divorced. He dazzled us as the man of the world we took him to be, full of wisdom that he seemed ready to impart in the form of advice or suggestions. He spoke of the birth control pill as the only significant invention of the twentieth century. And he considered the budding feminist movement the greatest opportunity ever offered to
men
, whose appetites would now be sated as never before. Over coffee, Max flattered me with an invitation to join him and a few friends getting together to listen to some new Art Blakey and Thelonious Monk albums he had received from New York. He gave me the address of his small waterfront apartment in Urca and revealed that he hosted a weekly jazz show on Radio MEC. He alluded to his gifts as an announcer and the stories he would make up to fill airtime when, out of laziness, he neglected to prepare material.

As though struck by sudden inspiration, I asked if he could recommend a tailor. He then made me the beneficiary of advice received from a veteran ambassador: “Make
few
suits.” Long pause. “In
London
.”

As I listened to Max, I realized how refined our ministry was in terms of language and hidden codes. Words, rhythms, and implied italics could imbue sentences with an entirely distinctive
Proustian flair. Such minor details, I believe, were what made me like Max right away: his ability to play with the mind and to conjure ideas, sometimes important, sometimes childish, with the lightness of a bird. Nothing, in my opinion, better exemplified Itamaraty and the diplomat’s role back then better than my companion’s levity, which the imprudent called savoir-faire. They couldn’t imagine what strain lay behind my new friend’s personal efforts.

On our cab ride back to the ministry after lunch, we heard on the radio that the Military Security Council was meeting with the President of the Republic at Laranjeiras Palace. That night we all saw in the shaky black-and-white images on our TV sets — and heard through our open windows, in successive layers of sounds that arose from streets, neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country — that the generals had imposed Institutional Act Number 5 (AI-5), which severely curtailed civil liberties. It was December 1968 and there was clearly nothing fortuitous about the blades glinting in the sun around us. The nation was preparing to plunge into a period far darker than what had already come to pass — and far more suffocating.

Years would elapse before I recognized the deeper significance of Max and my having met that day, a Friday the thirteenth, no less. Only then was I able to associate the shadow he cast over my desk with that which would gradually take over the country.

Those who admired Max would say he was a pro; to others, he was simply an opportunist. And, inevitably, there were some who saw him as a scoundrel. I personally think Max, like many before and after him, might simply have been a victim of his own inherent contradictions — and not just a gentleman with a sword for hire. A gentleman, it’s worth recalling, whose path would end up being defined by a singular set of accomplishments. There were few among us like him, so readily adapting to the ever-changing conditions of that time with such charm and competence, swiftly scaling the ranks of our hierarchy over the twenty years of military rule, and then going on to achieve further triumphs after the return to political normalcy — when everything indicated he should have been exiled or, with any luck, retired.

I imagine there must have been cases similar to his in the countless hidden corners of our federal administration. But no other setting lent itself to the particular sleights of hand that Itamaraty afforded its actors. This fact might be attributed to the subtlety with which those transactions were negotiated, since the foreign offices are known for their discretion. On the other hand, the presidential palaces in Rio de Janeiro and, later, Brasilia, as well as the embassies abroad, served admirably for the elaborate charades staged by bureaucrats eager to ingratiate themselves with those in power. For while the horrors took place in the military barracks and prisons, at formal state dinners
the regime showed its finer skills, seating torturers and gentlemen side by side.

As for Max, he always seemed to be involved in bigger projects and causes, which far surpassed the routine tasks entrusted to us. That these might shift imperceptibly over time in focus (or
axis
, as he liked to say) never seemed to disturb him. At most, they would prompt him to make a comment or two about the transitory nature of ideologies — comments that enabled him to drop moral considerations from his personal equation. Once, when I criticized an individual who had adapted with remarkable speed to the political realities of the new times, Max simply smiled, as though listening to the ranting of a child, as he spun a crystal paperweight on his desk.
Changes
, his gesture seemed to imply,
are a part of life
. And the corollary, also unspoken, was as vivid as the crystal spinning before my eyes:
You had better learn how to deal with them accordingly
.

Anyone who sees Max today in official photos, decked out in his uniform, with white gloves, sword, and plumed hat, presenting his credentials in some foreign court, can’t help but be impressed by his majestic appearance. The self-confidence, dignity, and poise that emerge from these images convey a supreme composure — albeit born of illusion. Not that Max deceived everyone — that was never the case. But for someone like me, who met him when he was young and thrilled to have recouped his family’s former splendor, one fact stands out: he deceived himself above all. So how not to feel a special tenderness, even now, on receiving the photos he periodically sends us in the diplomatic pouch with a friendly postcard from some far-off land, images of himself in full dress, adorned with feathers, silk, and lace? How not to appreciate the idyllic scenes of Itamaraty banquets recorded with just as much enjoyment in Brasilia?

Oh, the Itamaraty banquets … How many were there then, paying tribute to kings and queens, among other foreign
dignitaries who honored our generals with their presence? Partygoing people, who indulged in everything — except suspicions?

“How could they be willing to play along?” I would grumble to myself, wrestling with irritation that would turn to indignation as my friend lingered over the men’s dress coats and uniforms, as well as their numerous decorations, or let himself become entranced by the women’s gowns — and the jewelry they wore with calculated nonchalance.

My friend … That’s still how I picture him on that late morning, when he whispered “fortuitous” in my ear and invited me to lunch. From the very start, he fascinated me. For his congeniality and intellectual brilliance at first. And, as the years went by, for something I always had trouble pinpointing but would today define as a kind of wistfulness, which would lead him to try to recover his lost childhood — knowing only too well that, of all his dreams, this would be the only unattainable one.

To make his social ascent feasible, and for added emotional support, Max surrounded himself with a diverse group of friends. The circle included young people of assorted leanings ranging from idealism to full-blown alienation. The fact that he was accepted and courted by his peers gave him added confidence in carrying out his projects. The group — whom I met when I accepted my new companion’s invitation to listen to jazz in his apartment and into which I was quickly integrated — essentially consisted of Max’s girlfriend, Ana, a young actress I had already seen onstage in Rio de Janeiro more than once; Moira, an artist who lived in Santa Teresa (inundated with debt and cats, according to Max); Olavo, a millionaire who owned a silver-gray Lancia in which he would cruise around Rio late at night, and whose appeal owed a lot to the jazz albums he would bring back from his trips to New York; Efraim, a poet whose genius was celebrated by Max alone, since no one else had access to his verses; and, finally, Flávio Eduardo, a film critic who would later get
caught up in political militancy, go underground, and die a few months later in a bank robbery.

Each of us unwittingly played a role in Max’s master plan. Mine was having lived in countries he knew only through literature and speaking (without an accent) two or three languages Max had taken great pains to learn at his boarding school. Ana’s consisted of shining onstage and being courted by theater and film bigwigs, who envied our friend because once the night came to a close, it was his bed the beauty would seek. Olavo’s could be summed up as flying his fiery meteor along the city’s deserted streets, awaiting the tree that would eventually kill him. The young poet Efraim’s was pondering verses with the implicit condition that he would remain unknown. I never understood what Moira was doing in our midst, which in a way also confirmed the group’s unorthodox profile. Flávio’s role would be unveiled only after his disappearance: dying for a lost cause. And even this extreme case would leave the impression of having to do with some whim of our friend and host.

But all of these hidden clues would become clear to me only as time went by. The afternoon of my initiation, finding the street-level door open, I’d gone up to the building’s third and top floor, from which voices and music were drifting down. Max seemed to have forgotten that he’d invited me. He looked surprised at first but quickly recovered: placing a hand on my shoulder, he asked everyone to quiet down and lowered the stereo, relegating John Coltrane to the background — utter sacrilege. He then formally announced, “This guy has read everything. Even more than I have.” He made the statement as though bestowing a title of honor on me — yet the brilliance was all owed to him. Ana, to whom I hadn’t yet been introduced, confirmed my perception with an amused wink, which I caught by mere chance:
Max
was the benchmark to which the achievements of others were compared.

Without further ado, Max turned the stereo up, bringing John Coltrane back to the scene, and I was thrown into a rarefied atmosphere, as if I’d suddenly been given access to a greenhouse filled with exotic plant species.

We were young, we drank a lot, and the country was imploding at our feet — without our realizing what exactly was taking place. What was censored was more telling than what was revealed in the media, giving rise to a host of rumors. And these only grew.
Dead
,
missing
,
tortured
 … The imagined horror magnified the actual, since it had no defined shape or limits. What could we do? Take up arms? Jazz symbolized freedom. The louder and more abstract, the better. Drinking, fueled by anxiety and chaos, took care of the rest. The word of Flávio’s death, however, eventually brought a particular depth to our silence, which went far beyond pain and confusion: our safe haven had been violated.

In spite of it all, during those early days, I never stopped seeing Max through admiring eyes. He in turn gradually adopted me as a younger brother: an honor, true, but one that reflected a distinct hierarchy — assigning the role of mentor to himself. After my having built Max’s pedestal with such enthusiasm, it took me years to dismantle it, in a tormenting, drawn-out process.

Looking back now, and considering everything that transpired in Brazil after the military coup — particularly following the AI-5 decree — I see Max as one of the most pitiful symbols of our country at that time. All the same, the decision to tell his story was difficult, requiring four decades. The urge to do so, initially daunting, ended up becoming inescapable. Not so much in order to reveal what we always knew within our group: namely, that the devil was in our midst. Not even because of the alternately perverse and tragic circumstances of the players involved and the sad situations they lived through. But out of my own need, as a witness to the adverse effects the period had on people I cared for.

The statements bordering on confessions that Max made to me over the years, often thanks to too much whiskey, or in response to remarks of mine — which weren’t always kind or conciliatory — I have included here in order to give a fuller sense of other complex aspects of his character. The rest — no small amount, as will become evident — I gathered, often unexpectedly, from reliable sources close to Max (his ex-wife, former superiors, subordinates, acquaintances, friends, enemies), people who admired or abhorred him, as well as those whose careers may well have been jeopardized by his actions — but who nonetheless fell under his spell.

Max had been appointed to the first position of his diplomatic career more than five years earlier, in August 1963, after finishing his studies at the Rio Branco Institute.

The military coup of April 1964 was only months away and the country was seething with prerevolutionary Marxist ardor. The leftists, to use the language of the old-timers, were rolling up their sleeves, while the right held back and got organized. There were so many leftist groups that one had the impression the right didn’t even exist. Or if it did, it lacked teeth. At the universities, Socialists and Communists voiced greater misgivings about the right-wing students than about the military, for those stocky young men were going around armed and preying on intellectuals — who were almost always frail by comparison. They wore their repression with pride — outwardly and aggressively, in contrast with the more conservative Tradition, Family, and Property movement.

Besides Brecht, Mayakovsky, and Sartre, Max read selected works by Mao and Che Guevara — among others attuned to the moment. Thanks to his journalist friends, he enjoyed direct access to Rio’s intelligentsia. He would go to hear jazz musicians at the Beco das Garrafas and circulate among the boxes at the Municipal Theater. In bohemian circles, he expounded on Godard’s films, which he said he preferred to those of Resnais. And he regarded those of Truffaut with a condescending smile.

Max had originally been assigned by the ministry to serve in the Middle East division. However, before he assumed his duties there, he received another offer. Through the intervention of a senator — for whom Max, as an intern in the ministry’s consular sector, had secured a diplomatic passport in less than an hour — he was invited to switch divisions and serve in the minister’s office.