In this experimental short story from her award-winning collection Trouxa frouxa, Vilma Arêas takes us back to the period of the military dictatorship, into the mind of a woman who searches frantically through Brazilian bureaucracy for someone held and hurt just out of reach. Through her, we glimpse the Department of Political and Social Order (DOPS), the Army Police (PE); with her, we seek help at the Episcopal Conference of Brazil (CNBB). We feel the futility and violence of paperwork. Brought to us in English for the first time by translator Adi Gold, Arêas’s “Archive” is a document of dictatorship that refuses to forget.

-1-

On February 26 of 1975 he left for work and disappeared into the air, car and all. She made the rounds of hospitals, morgue, police stations. Why do you think he’s here, ma’am? Is he a delinquent? Ma’am do you know anything? Are you his wife? Oh, you live together. That’s a different story. I bet he’s out on a bender. Nobody’s made of stone and there’s plenty of women left. There sure are. Take it easy, he’ll have enough and come back. A contact at DOPS on the second day. Call tomorrow at the same time. What’s the name again? Last name? Can you describe his features? There was a bug clicking on the other side of the line. She called. I verified everything, ma’am, he’s not at DOPS, they must have taken him to PE. Tough luck, huh? Looking for the judge on the third day. Come along with me, his honor knows people. Calm down, sweetheart, nothing’s going to happen. I know politicians. You’ll see, your husband, he walks a straight line, he’s a friend of mine. It’s hot as hell today, let’s wait for it to cool off. Have you seen me play the organ? I’m no Guenther Brausinger, but… Toccata in C minor, how beautifully shines the morning star (the voice of a spent baritone). And the largo, oh, the largo, the bridal procession from Lohengrin. Or do you prefer the Funeral March? Great God, we praise Thee… But what is this, my flower, why are you crying? I can’t concentrate like this. CNBB on the fourth day. The secretary interrupts her typing, raises her head: another missing person report? This is too much. Fill out the form, explain what happened. Dom Ivo went to confer with Geisel and would be back at any moment. The plane was late, one woman says. She begins to speak with others in the room. All with relatives missing for different lengths of time, two years, two months, two days. She fills out the form, her heart blanched, leaves, asks an officer to bring the car out please. Her vision dimming. Arm in arm with the judge, who walks unsteadily down the ministry hall. The colonel polite to a fault. Today is Friday, nothing can get done. An English work week. She brought a bag with chocolates, medicine, cheese. But what is it, then, that he did? I mean, in terms of subversion. Nothing? Look, how can you be his wife and not know anything? But sir will you have the bag delivered? I will. And a note? Could I send a note? You could. The judge’s chauffeur opens the door of the Cadillac. Damnit, I forgot cigarettes, I forgot the cigarettes, what kind of a woman am I, how could I forget cigarettes of all things? In the afternoon the judge makes an invitation. Shall we go to Colombo? Later we’ll speak with Vitorino Freire. At the restaurant he does not introduce her to acquaintances, complicit looks, not bad, your honor. On the tenth day the Jornal do Brasil confirms an arrest, with the first and last name. She reads the name printed on the page a thousand times, letter by letter, suffering. The name she had written on her breast. She clips the paper, pastes it in her calendar. She invites friends to celebrate, they drink whiskey and look at Sugarloaf from the window. So that’s to say they don’t kill anymore. They get drunk. Only by chance, if they happen to make a mistake during torture. In fifteen days, the lawyer calls. I’m going there to see a prisoner, if he’s not very injured you can see him, too. The lawyer goes in, comes out again with a captain, laughing. Not today, maybe next week, we’ll schedule it later. She clings to the captain’s arm. Uncontrollable. Do you mean he is very injured? A little tap on the shoulder, ma’am, the worst is over. The officer disappears and reappears with the bags she had left with the colonel days before. You agree of course that it wouldn’t be convenient, it would interfere entirely with the interrogation. She cries right in front of him, blowing her nose into her fingers, wiping them on her skirt. The next month, the senator. Calm down, it’s going to be all right, you have to be patient. He’s an extremely well-educated man, speaks seven languages. Is that why they arrested him? What do you mean, don’t be ironic. I’m telling you, you hear, don’t be ironic. Calmer. He’s an upstanding citizen, doesn’t oppose any resistance. But, senator, how could he? Look, sweetheart, I don’t like what I’m hearing, what a nag you are. Let’s change the subject. Deep in his armchair, he tells the entire story of his life as a self-made man, met his wife playing the piano at a reading, her family disapproved but it was love at first sight. Now I own the state of Maranhão. But what about him, senator, where does that leave us? Leave it to me, sweetheart, leave it to me, I know what I’m doing. But, senator, the hardliners… Punch to the armrest. Sweetheart, I’m the hardliner. Hardliner and a loyal revolutionary. Pauses. Loyal revolutionary, you hear. Not them, they’re ultra-hardliners. They want Geisel out, but we won’t let that happen, you hear? They don’t want to let go of the golden teat they’ve been sucking all this time. And a very fat teat it is, you hear?

-2-

When the police ring started tightening, he burned the papers, got rid of the 38 and went out to the street bundled in rags pretending to be a beggar. Accustomed to a narrow life in hiding, he was dizzied by the open air, nauseated by the smell of the ocean. On the second day an actual beggar came up to him and said he obviously wasn’t any kind of beggar himself. And that the street wasn’t served up just like that on a silver platter, no sir. That there was order. There was a system. That he must be fooling himself. He must be running away from something complicated. Maybe the police. Maybe a love affair. Ok. Ok. He’ll give him a tip. He should hide out at funerals in the suburbs. That’s right. They always serve some coffee, cookies. And he can cry in peace. Looks like he’s got plenty of reasons to cry.

-3-

An entire night turning pages of a photo album with one of the interrogators sticking his hand up her skirt. She sees many familiar faces.

– I don’t know anybody.

– Look carefully.

– I already said, I don’t know anybody.

To gain time, or perhaps because many years later she would fall in love with a man by this name, she points to an unfamiliar face:

– Antonio.

The interrogator pulls his hand out of her skirt, turns over the photo. On the back is written: Antonio.

-4-

Trying not to give in or unravel, she hears the voice of the fat interrogator who was leafing through her little address book.

– Listen to this.

Silence.

– A frog is green by definition, but a frog that is mimetic has the condition of being hermetic.

Stupefaction.

– What the hell is that supposed to mean? Obviously this is code.

– This complicates things. It complicates things a lot.

They’re irritated.

– I want to hear you explaining this, you better explain it.

In her mind she enters the scene again. São Paulo in the sun, walking down Augusta Street with her brother, in a shop window there is a frog made of soft leather filled with sand. Brown, stuffed, it was used as a door stop. Laughing to herself she thought of Laís. She bought the frog for her friend. They sat at an outdoor table to have some beers and read the papers. She wanted to send a card with the frog. She tried out the rhymes in her address book.

A frog is green by definition
but a frog that is mimetic
has the condition
of being hermetic.

She knows what awaits her. Her heart sinks like a rock. She hears her own voice explain.

– It was a Saturday and the sun was out, I found a funny-looking frog on Augusta Street, it looked like a friend of mine.

-5-

Written over a door of the Special Police:

This is the land where the son cries and the mother does not hear.

-6-

(a) Dois Irmãos Bar

He was held for nine years in the Tarrafal and three in the Luanda Prison. He was freed in ‘73. But, to this day, he eats only with a spoon.

(b) Colonial legislation

That the silver, the silk and the bread not be touched by blacks.