The Mystery of Rio (17 page)

We do not know when, but we do know that the game of
manilha de paus
arose among the Gypsies and then spread throughout the city. Among other things, it was, of course, also a game of cards. However, before long there infiltrated in the Gypsy mentality the archaic concepts of the native peoples of the city—and for the natives, the stakes are life itself.

But let us go over the rules. An equal number of young women and young men participated, all potentially desirable, and of every status except married or enslaved (they say that this exclusion was what spurred the slaves to create capoeira).

The total number of players was necessarily divisible by four, the number of suits in a deck. The duration was one year, beginning and ending on Easter—the day when the cards were dealt. The game had a real life queen, a Gypsy, who drew the cards, using two decks exactly the same: one for the men, another for the women, and whose cards, in ascending order of rank, were the ace, the deuce, the three, the four, the five, the six, the seven, the jack, the queen, and the king.

During Holy Week, starting on Palm Sunday, the Gypsy queen would randomly deal cards from the respective decks, one card for each girl, one for each boy. So, usually by Easter, a card was exhibited atop one of the tents in the camp—located around where the current Campo de Santana is, at the time known as Gypsies' Corral. The card was taken from a third deck, and it was the wild card, which defined the
manilha
and the
trunfo
.

If the card exhibited on the tent were a three of spades, the strongest rank (
the manilha
) would be the three, of any suit, and the strongest suit (
the trunfo
) would be spades. Any spade, in this example, would defeat any other suit; any three, in its particular suit, could defeat any other rank, even the king. But the three of spades, the wild card, would not be, in this case, the strongest card. This privilege was always reserved for the
manilha
of clubs—in this case, it was the three of clubs.

Here it is important to open an aside: for the Gypsies of Rio de Janeiro, the suits of a deck of cards represented, among other things, the four masculine virtues. And the ultimate virtue for them, symbolized by clubs, was luck, to which they linked cleverness and the ability to lie. Hence the greatness of the
manilha
of clubs.

Just below it, in a malleable hierarchy, came the diamonds, representing money, power, honor, the possession of material and abstract assets, and the capacity to influence men; then came spades, encompassing pure strength, dexterity, or other essential physical qualities such as ambition or courage; and finally hearts, reflecting elegance, charm, grace, and a mastery of knowledge and the arts.

The reader may find the following basic rule inconsistent: the young man who was dealt the
manilha
of clubs became the guardian, the grand master of ceremonies, responsible for protecting the young lady who, from the female deck, randomly selected the same playing card—but he did not have the right to touch her. I mentioned that he was a guardian because the ultimate prize was precisely this young lady who drew the
manilha
of clubs.

One day I will write a book (perhaps a wearisome novel) about this intriguing Rio tradition. For now, if the reader is not familiar with the card game and has difficulty understanding the rules, please follow the author's instruction: observe the unfolding of one match which began on Easter of 1710, when the Gypsy queen drew and put on display on her tent the ace of diamonds.

For our purposes, it will suffice to follow the movements of a single player—Fernão da Moura, a young man, a student, the son of a surgeon who rented houses in less wealthy parts of the city where emancipated slaves lived. The father was an elderly widower, but his great sadness in life was having been denied the ability to serve Christ, because he was unable to establish cleanliness of blood and because his ancestors were said to have suffered from a “mechanical defect,” (i.e., they were suspected to have engaged in manual labor). Fernão, of course, cared little about such trifles.

Fernão da Moura's problem at that moment was his luck: he had been one of the first men in line to see the Gypsy, and he unfortunately drew the deuce of hearts. Not only did he not draw clubs, not only did he not draw the
trunfo
card—for the wild card was the ace of diamonds—his card, the deuce, also happened to be the lowest rank in the four suits.

Let us understand Fernão's dilemma: like any other player, to win over one of the young girls he first had to be alone with her (a move appropriately called “ravishing” in the Gypsy slang).

If he were successful in performing this feat and presented that card—the deuce of hearts—and the girl had clubs or spades, he could not touch her, because the suits do not coincide and because hearts was not the
trunfo
. If, by misfortune, the young lady were
trunfada
(i.e., if she had diamonds), he would have to pay a penalty and maybe even be suspended temporarily, if she chose to seize his card. And if, by chance, this young lady, who he had managed to be alone with, had hearts, it would have been just as bad luck for Fernão to have deuce—that year, it was worth less than the ace itself—and it would have eliminated his last chances at success.

His only option, therefore, was to take a playing card away from an opponent via a challenge. Fernão da Moura, however, was coolheaded. Instead of proposing challenges left and right, as many did, he preferred to carefully analyze the behavior of others. He, Fernão, believed that each player was his own playing card. The ones who proposed challenges right away, in general, were those who did not have clubs or the
trunfo
suit. The ones fortunate enough to be the
trunfados
—the only ones who could try approaching young ladies of any suit—would throw themselves at all of the girls eagerly. Those who had drawn clubs—the only ones entitled to “ravish” the trump of that suit—would normally adopt a defensive posture, because they were also the ones who received the most challenges, since even those with a
trunfo
card needed clubs in order to obtain the big prize. This was a key aspect of the rule: the young lady who held the
manilha
of clubs could only be “ravished” by someone who also held clubs.

The fascinating part about the game was not just the duels to seize the playing cards; the art resided mainly in the intrigue, the deals, and the deceit (as allowed by the rules). Women, for example, though they were potentially available, had their own desires, their own romantic interests, and they would rather choose, spurning those they saw as unworthy. Fernão da Moura, patient and cool, also observed them, particularly to discover as quickly as possible who the lady
manilha
of clubs was.

Thus, Fernão's first step in the game was to spy on the grand master of ceremonies. This player—whose only job it was to protect the
manilha
of clubs until the end, when he would conquer her and thus win the game—was the only player who was obliged to declare his status (and there were agreed upon signs to that effect), and he was also the only one to know the playing cards drawn by the others (information given to him by the Gypsy queen).

He also served as referee for challenges, which needed to obey the nature of the suits in a dispute, and he surreptitiously served the other girls too, in exchange for favors in schemes that naturally served their interests.

The grand master of ceremonies also had the duty of announcing to all the preconditions imposed by the lady
manilha
of clubs. Besides the possession of a card of that suit, only the fulfillment of such preconditions empowered players to try to “ravish” her, and anyone who dared do this without fulfilling one or another condition was excluded from the game. It was common for the lady
manilha
of clubs to establish four preliminary tasks, each according to the nature of one of the suits.

That year, in April 1710, the grand master of ceremonies was Estevão Maia, a member of the powerful Maia clan and a foe of Fernão, for his family had testified before the Council of Conscience and Order against the claims of old man Moura. As per the rules, Estevão declared the preconditions of the lady
manilha
of clubs. However, in August, there was a twist in the game and in the city's history: the invasion led by pirate Jean du Clerc.

Four hundred French and seventy Cariocas died in the fighting. Captain du Clerc was arrested, but not before inflicting some of those seventy casualties, including that of Second Lieutenant Gaspar d'Almeida, who had drawn the jack of clubs.

Although cheating was, to a certain extent, permissible, the grand master of ceremonies would hardly, if ever, accept a card taken off of a murdered man, unless there was a valid explanation and an even better witness. However, in the case of Gaspar d'Almeida, who died in battle, things were much simpler: and everyone knew that the killer was one of the pirates, and many claimed that it was du Clerc himself. And French pirates, of course, did not play.

Hence, the mystery: Gaspar's brother—a cadet, who had drawn the seven of diamonds—was the first to be called to rescue the wounded solider. He could not do so immediately, because the French were advancing. When he arrived, his brother was already dead. His first step—to preserve the secrecy of the game—was to search for Gaspar's card, which, as per the rules, players were bound have in their possession.

However, after searching him from head to toe, he found nothing.

Of course, everyone wanted to know what had happened. Either the second lieutenant had simply lost the card, or he had not complied with the rules (thought to be very unlikely), or there had been extenuating circumstances that needed to be brought to the fore. That is when the big news was revealed: Grand Master of Ceremonies Estêvão Maia said the lady
manilha
of clubs had replaced the four preliminary tasks with one single task: to discover the whereabouts, or the holder, of the jack of clubs.

The life of Fernão da Moura—which had gone from Hell to Heaven—was sliding back into Hell, for it was he, Fernão, who held the jack of clubs. To understand how, we need simply to go back to the battleground: at that skirmish, Fernão da Moura, hidden behind the walls of a church that was under construction (the future church of the Rosário), witnessed the death of Gaspar d'Almeida. Because the French kept advancing, pursuing fugitives, Fernão came out of his hiding place, unnoticed, and went to the second lieutenant's body, where he wasted no time in taking possession of the card.

Of course, he was counting on the fact that such theft would be deemed legal. After all, he had not killed anyone, and he had witnesses to that effect. But, being somewhat fearful of Estêvão Maia's reaction, he took his time in reporting the incident, hoping to concoct a version that would not bring dishonor to himself and which omitted mention of his hiding behind a wall.

Once the decision had been enacted by the
manilha
of clubs, which made it clear that they had a suspect, Fernão da Moura found himself in a tight spot, because one could arrive at the conclusion—or Estevão Maia might argue—that he had found the lieutenant still alive, and had killed him in order to take possession of the powerful card.

While awaiting an opportunity to display the jack with a compelling story, Fernão da Moura was challenged twice: once in spades (which he won, to his surprise, in a game of ring toss at a horse show), and again in hearts (defeating his opponent in a test of Latin grammar).

The match extended into 1711. By then, about twenty girls had been “ravished” and were out of the game (because they had delivered their cards to the boys, for the final calculation of points). Thus, by process of elimination, many should have already deduced the identity of the
manilha
of clubs. Fernão da Moura, however, did not have sufficient information to work out such computations. The actions of the grand master of ceremonies, however, revealed once and for all (and not only to Fernão) the identity of the
manilha
of clubs.

Estevão Maia, who had been in the habit of attending Mass at the army's Santa Cruz Chapel (because he was a cadet and his family had quarrels with the Jesuits), amazingly began instead to attend services at the old church at the college at Castelo Hill.

It so happened that, at around the same time, a beautiful young girl broke with old habits and also began attending the same church: Brígida, Little Brígida, daughter of Lieutenant Castro e Torres, political ally of the Maias.

Fernão da Moura, like others, had no doubt that Little Brígida was the
manilha
of clubs. Gypsies say that the greatest virtue in a man is luck; and Fernão's luck began to turn when the pirate Jean du Clerc—hitherto detained at the Jesuits' college—was transferred, by his own urgent insistence, to the house of Lieutenant Castro e Torres.

This, as far as Fernão was concerned, seemed to be a plan concocted by Estevão Maia, because the lieutenant's house, Brígida's house, actually a three-story palace, was now patrolled by soldiers. Plus, there was something untoward between the girl and the pirate, which the grand master of ceremonies, contrary to the rules, was concealing, perhaps because he was only interested in the card.

However, the presence in the palace of Jean du Clerc, the killer of Second Lieutenant Gaspar d'Almeida, gave Fernão da Moura an occasion. Now he only needed to contrive a way to enter the mansion.

The surgeon's son reasoned like a Gypsy: in that game, he had already proved his mettle in hearts, and he had also shown his skill in spades. The episodes involving the second lieutenant's murder and the transfer of du Clerc showed his valor in clubs. What was necessary now was to demonstrate his talent in diamonds.

Do not think, however, that Fernão da Moura needed to resort to bribing guards. His father, old man Moura, had rented houses in the less wealthy parts of the city, and his blood stain and the other defects attributed to him were perhaps explained by the fact that, in his capacity as a surgeon, he provided medical services to many of his tenants, free of charge, especially the emancipated slaves, members of the fellowships Our Lady of the Rosary and Saint Benedict of Black Men.